YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - A Warren woman is the plaintiff in a $5,000,000 civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court over the data breach reported by the parent firm of the company that operates four Valley hospitals.

Attorneys for Myrtle Keen filed the suit on Thursday against Community Health Systems which oversees the operation of 209 facilities in 29 states, including Northside Medical Center in Youngstown, Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren, Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland, and Sharon Regional Health System.

Lawyers say the class action suit has been filed on behalf on Keen and other individuals whose patient identification data was stolen from the CHS computer network during a data breach of medical records that took place last April, but was not made public until July.

The suit says that it was August before CHS sent out notifications informing present and former patients that information such as names, addresses, birth dates, telephone numbers and Social Security numbers had been compromised by data hackers.

Although no allegation is made in the suit that any of Keen's personal information has been used in any crimes such as identity theft, the suit says that a threat of immediate harm has injured her privacy as a result of negligence.

The lawsuit says that approximately 4.5 million individuals have had their patient identification data misappropriated as a result of the data breach.

The lawyers are asking for a jury trial and expect damages to be in excess of $5,000,000.

One of the attorneys for Keen, Daniel Karon of Cleveland, tells 21 News that he expects this lawsuit to be combined with five other similar legal actions filed in other parts of the country.

A U.S. District Court Judge in Alabama is currently considering those other cases.

21 News has contacted CHS for reaction to the lawsuit, but has not received a response.

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Hackers access information on 4.5 million CHS patients