UCSD HEALTH SUED OVER BREACH THAT EXPOSED PATIENT RECORDS
Lawsuit seeks class-action status in case involving information of up to 500K
UC San Diego Health faces a lawsuit over a data breach last winter that potentially exposed sensitive information from nearly a half-million patients, employees and others connected with the health care system.
Lawyers representing an El Cajon cancer patient filed legal action this week in San Diego federal court alleging negligence, breach of contract, and violation of California consumer privacy and medical confidentiality laws. It seeks class-action status and unspecified damages for all individuals whose personal and medical information may have been compromised.
“Patients should trust that their most private medical results will not be made public, and that their medical visits will not leave them at risk for identity theft,” said San Diego Attorney Jason Hartley, who is working with lead counsel Stueve Siegel Hanson of Kansas City. “This breach was preventable — had UC San Diego Health had the right data protection protocols in place.”
The lawsuit names the Regents of the University of California doing business as UC San Diego Health. A university spokesperson declined to comment on pending litigation.
In July, the health care system announced on its website that hackers had used a phishing scam to gain unauthorized access to certain email accounts over a four-month period from Dec. 2 through April 8.
That opened the door to potential access to a wide range of personal and medical data. At the time, UC San Diego Health didn’t say how many people were affected due to an ongoing investigation, which included reporting the breach to the FBI and working with external cybersecurity experts.
That probe is now complete. Beginning Sept. 7, UC San Diego Health began notifying the 495,949 individuals affected by the breach on a rolling
struction products. Factories went idle temporarily and are now trying to catch up on production at the same time that demand has intensified due to an unexpectedly hot housing market and a surge in home remodeling.
Lumber futures jumped to an all-time high $1,670 per thousand board feet in May. They’ve since dropped to $634, about 10 percent higher than a year ago. Still, wholesale prices for a category of homebuilding components that includes windows, roofing tiles, doors and steel, increased 22 percent over the last 12 months, according to an analysis of Labor Department data conducted by the National Association of Home Builders. Before 2020, it was typical for such aggregate prices to rise a little over 1 percent annually.
Those conditions are likely to persist. Robert Dietz, chief economist at the NAHB, said he’s heard from builders that “there are ongoing challenges, and in some cases growing challenges, with flooring, other kinds of building materials.”
Meanwhile, any savings on lumber have yet to filter down to many builders, including Thomas James Homes, which operates in California, Washing ton state and Colorado.
“The price we’re paying for lumber today is the same price we were paying 90 or 120 days ago,” said Jon Tattersall, the builder’s president, who noted his company’s overall building costs have increased about 30 percent since November.
Homebuyers shouldn’t expect to see any discounts from falling lumber prices, either, because builders set their prices based largely on overall demand in the housing market.
A signed contract for a home yet to be built typically includes an allowance for unexpected construction costs, but generally builders will have to eat big increases
and then pass them on to the next buyer.
“On our future ones, those are the ones we’re having to raise the costs on,” Tattersall said.
Higher prices for building materials isn’t the only factor driving up builders’ costs. A chronic shortage of skilled construction workers has worsened during the pandemic, forcing builders to factor in higher labor costs.
Inflation is being felt across the economy. Consumer prices rose 5.3 percent in August from the same month a year ago. At the producer level, inflation jumped an even steeper 8.3 percent, the biggest annual gain on record.
The Federal Reserve has said it believes the surge in inflation will be temporary. For now, though, the rise in
building materials costs and the lingering supply crunch are making everything from houses and apartments to commercial buildings more expensive.
To manage, many builders are slowing the rollout of new homes. Zonda Economics, a real estate data tracker, estimates some 85 percent of builders are intentionally
limiting their sales.
“They’re trying to make sure they have the land ready, the workers ready and the materials ready to be able to actually deliver the homes that they’ve sold,” said Ali Wolf, Zonda’s chief economist.
Even with inflation, builders are benefiting from the hottest housing market in years. Demand for new homes has strengthened, while the number of previously occupied U.S. homes up for sale has fallen to historic lows, pushing prices higher.
The median price of a new home sold in July climbed 18.4 percent from a year earlier to $390,500, an all-time high, according to the Commerce Department. For existing homes, the median price jumped 17.8 percent in July to $359,900, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Builders typically hire contractors who handle framing, electrical, plumbing and other facets of construction. As these firms have faced higher costs to secure skilled labor or source the materials they need to do their job, they’ve had to pass those increases onto builders.
Tri Pointe Homes, which builds homes in 10 states, including California, Texas and Maryland, has faced higher labor costs. It’s been working through those increases, at times moving beyond its core group of contractors, said CEO Doug Bauer.
One way Tri Pointe and other builders are dealing with product delays is to ask contractors to install temporary fixtures and appliances, for example, so that buyers can move in as quickly as possible.
“Then, as soon as the original item becomes available, we are returning to install it,” Bauer said.
To stay ahead of rising costs, Tri Pointe has raised its home prices and reduced buyer incentives when necessary. Even so, the builder has raised its guidance on the number of homes it expects to deliver this year from 6,000 to 6,300.
While the big, publicly traded builders have the means to buy building materials and warehouse them until needed, smaller builders that make up the majority of the industry are at the mercy of suppliers.
Sivage, whose company builds homes priced from $250,000 to $1 million, used to be able to lock in the price of lumber with suppliers a year in advance. That changed in recent years as demand for lumber increased. Now, Sivage doesn’t know what it will cost him until it’s ready for delivery.
“We’ve had to grin and bear it,” he said.