Joana and Walter v. ABC Insurance

Joana and Walter, customers of ABC Insurance, took care to protect their private information. They destroyed mail that contained sensitive data and avoided uploading any such information online. Despite their care, they both became victims of identity theft. Unknown identity thieves opened bank accounts in Joanas name and changed her home address with the US Postal Service. Someone opened an Etrade account in Walters name. Joana and Walter blamed ABC Insurance. About a year earlier, two unencrypted laptops containing the health information, Social Security numbers, names, address, and phone numbers, names, addresses, and phone numbers of 1.2 million ABC Insurance customers had been stolen from the companys offices. Joana and Walter sued ABC Insurance for negligence, claiming the company breached its duty to keep information secure and this breach caused their identity theft. Joana and Walter argued that if it had not been for ABCs carelessness, they would not have been victims of identity theft. ABC filed a motion to dismiss, arguing (a) that ABC did not have a duty to plaintiffs and (b) that the plaintiffs could not prove that the breach caused their injuries a year earlier. The court has scheduled a hearing to hear from both parties on these issues.

1. Prepare a statement of the applicable law. What rules will the court be applying? Is the case about whether an offer was made? Then describe the requirements for a valid offer. Is this about promissory estoppel, then describe the elements of promissory estoppel. Again, the task here is to accurately inform the court of something it needs to understand to make the decision