Class action lawsuit filed against Dorn VA

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COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - A class action lawsuit was filed this week against Dorn VA Medical Center.

The lawsuit was filed after Dorn let two months go by before alerting over 2,000 patients that their medical records and personal data went missing.

Officials with the William Jennings Bryan Dorn VA Medical Center said Monday it sent letters notifying 2,179 veterans that their personal information may have been compromised when four boxes of reports were reported missing from a lab. The missing pathology records, stolen from a locked lab, were from dates of service in 1999, 2000 and 2002.

The Mike Kelly Law Group filed the suit in U.S. District Court siting Dorn and the Veteran's Administration violated the U.S. Privacy Act.

Attorney Brad Hewett said they filed the lawsuit to send a message to the VA and to keep similar data breaches from happening again.

This isn't the first time Dorn has reported missing patient records.

The Department of Veterans Affairs sent letters to patients after a laptop computer was stolen from the Dorn Respiratory Therapy department in February 2013.

At the time, Dorn said the personal information of 7,405 veterans was compromised. The personal information included names, birth dates and partial Social Security numbers.

The U.S. government has not yet responded to the complaint.