Is Hannaford Bros liable for compromised 4 million credit cards?

A federal judge, D. Brock Hornby, revealed he would decide in the next few days whether parts or the entire suit of Hannaford Bros should go forward. 

The case of Hannaford arose after hackers stole credit and debit card numbers, expiration dates and PIN numbers from people shopping at Hannaford supermarkets during the period of Dec. 7, 2007 and March 10, 2008. It is also known that Hannaford allegedly knew about the security breach at least three weeks before making a public announcement on March 17, 2008. More than 4 million card numbers were exposed, and approximately 1,800 fraudulent charges had been made by that time. 

This resulted, in plaintiffs from several states filing lawsuits against Hannaford. Attorneys for the plaintiffs stated the case was supposed to be certified as a class-action suit and proceeded toward trial.

Clifford Ruprecht, the lead attorney for Hannaford, on the other hand, suggested the lawsuit should be dismissed. He reasoned his suggestion by the fact that no plaintiffs actually suffered, as the amount they lost was reimbursed by the banks that issued the cards. He added that hassles caused by the process of getting new cards that some of the card holders had to do, did not amount to the legal foundation for a class-action lawsuit.