Eisner Advisory Group Settlement Hearing: Approved Oct 20, 2026

The eisner advisory group settlement hearing took place on October 13, 2026 in St. Paul, and the decision came in writing a week later. On October 20, 2026, Judge Laura M. Provinzino signed an “Order Approving Class Action Settlement and Awarding Attorneys’ Fees, Expenses, and Service Awards” (Doc. 81). Its operative lines are short: “Plaintiffs’ Motion for Final Approval of Class Action Settlement (ECF No. 72) is GRANTED” and “This action is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE. LET JUDGMENT BE ENTERED ACCORDINGLY.” The court’s docket feed lists the judgment (Doc. 82) on the same date.

The court certified the settlement class — “All persons who were affected by the Data Incident, including but not limited to those who were sent a notice letter by Eisner concerning the Data Incident discovered in September of 2023” — and the California Subclass, and found the deal “fair, reasonable, and adequate.” It approved everything class counsel asked for: $350,000 in fees, which the order describes as 33.33 percent of the fund; $8,892.68 in expenses; and service awards of $2,500 each to the nine named plaintiffs, $22,500 in total. Eisner did not oppose either motion.

The record behind the ruling: the administrator, Verita Global, began sending notice on July 10, 2026 to 85,080 potential class members and estimates it reached 90.31% of them. The objection deadline was September 9, 2026; “Neither the Court nor the Settlement Administrator received any objections,” and three people asked to be excluded. The judge called the money a “modest monetary recovery to the class—$1.05 million total with roughly $100 pro rata cash payments to each class member,” but weighed it against Eisner’s pending motion to dismiss and the cost of a long data-breach fight. For the full background, see our Eisner Advisory Group data breach settlement page.

Only people who filed a claim by the deadline are paid. The postcard claim form said claims had to be submitted online or postmarked on or before October 8, 2026 (the court’s preliminary approval schedule listed October 9, 2026). The order counts the claims two ways: “To date, 6,457 individuals have submitted timely claims” on page 3, and “In total, 6,547 claims were timely and valid” on page 5, adding that 5,376 selected cash and 1,909 selected credit monitoring. The order does not explain the gap between the two totals.

The benefits are those in the settlement agreement: reimbursement of documented losses up to $5,000 per person; two years of single-bureau credit monitoring with at least $1,000,000 of identity theft insurance; a $50 payment for California Subclass members; and the pro rata cash payment, “estimated at $100 per claimant.” The agreement fixes the order of payment: documented losses first, then credit monitoring, then the California payments, and only then “the remaining funds” go to the cash payments, which rise if money is left over and shrink if it runs short.

The administration bill has not been made public in the order, so no one can state the final cash amount today. What the numbers do allow, by our arithmetic: $1,050,000 minus the approved $350,000 in fees, $8,892.68 in expenses and $22,500 in service awards leaves $668,607.32 before administration costs, credit monitoring, loss claims and California payments. Spread over 5,376 cash claims, that is about $124 each — a ceiling, not a forecast; the real payment will be lower by whatever those other items cost.

How long after a class action settlement is approved do you get paid? In this case the answer is written into the settlement agreement, and it depends on the appeal clock, not on the approval date alone.

• October 20, 2026 — final approval order and judgment entered.
• November 19, 2026 — last day to file a notice of appeal. Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4 requires it “within 30 days after entry of the judgment or order appealed from” (our count from October 20). The agreement treats the judgment as “Final” once “the time to appeal or seek permission to appeal from the Judgment has expired” or any appeal is resolved.
• Effective Date — defined as “fifteen (15) days after” the judgment becomes Final. If no appeal is filed, our count puts it around December 5, 2026.
• Funding and payments — Eisner pays the fund to the administrator within 30 days of the Effective Date, and payments go out “within thirty (30) days of the Effective Date, or within twenty-one (21) days of the date that the claim is approved, whichever is later.” Without an appeal, that 30-day window runs to about January 4, 2027, by our count. Credit monitoring activation codes follow the same clock.
• Uncashed money — checks are void 90 days after issue; reissued checks are good for 45 days. Money left in the fund more than 150 days after distribution goes to a second pro rata payment to cash claimants if it reaches at least $5.00 each; otherwise it goes “as required by state law or to the non-profit organization to be agreed as a cy pres distribution.” Nothing reverts to Eisner.

An appeal would stop the clock until it is decided. Neither the court nor the administrator has published a payment date as of October 22, 2026; we could not load EisnerDataSettlement.com that day because the site refused automated requests.

The court-approved notice came from “In re Eisner Advisory Group Data Breach Litigation Settlement Administrator, P.O. Box 301132, Los Angeles, CA 90030-1132,” carried a Claim ID and PIN, and listed one website, EisnerDataSettlement.com, one email, admin@eisnerdatasettlement.com, and one phone number, 1-888-808-5813. Treat anything that points elsewhere with suspicion.

Because the breach involved names, Social Security numbers, financial account information, dates of birth and health insurance information, according to the settlement agreement, expect imitations now that “settlement approved” headlines are circulating. The payment process in the agreement does not require you to do anything further, so a message asking you to “verify” your Social Security number, log into your bank or pay a fee to release a payment does not match it. If in doubt, call the number printed on your postcard rather than one in an email.

The plaintiffs allege that in September 2023 an unauthorized party took sensitive personal information of more than 80,000 people from Eisner’s Minneapolis office, and that Eisner did not disclose the breach until April 8, 2025 — more than 18 months later. Eisner Advisory Group LLC and EisnerAmper LLP deny wrongdoing; the settlement contains no admission of liability. Suits filed in Minnesota were consolidated on May 27, 2025; mediation failed once, Eisner moved to dismiss, and the parties reported a settlement on March 12, 2026. Preliminary approval followed on June 11, 2026.

What is the average payout per person in a class action lawsuit? There is no reliable single average across cases; each settlement sets its own terms. Here, the court and the notice both use an estimate of about $100 for the cash option, with documented losses capped at $5,000. To compare what other breach settlements pay, our data breach settlement calculator walks through the same benefit types.