A prominent St. John’s lawyer is looking at launching a class-action lawsuit in relation to the cyber attack that has crippled the province’s healthcare system, and compromised the personal information of thousands.

Bob Buckingham says never before has a class action been filed that’s affects every person in the province.

He says they’re not sure how it will work, but Buckingham and his team are putting their minds to it.

He states there are a lot of issues in terms of who the defendants would be in such a case, but does say they see the Provincial Government, the NL Centre for Health Information, and the regional health authorities as defendants in the case.

Buckingham believes the situation is the result of “gross negligence,” noting that there have been several warnings about ransomware—including one issued by Meditech, the company behind the province’s software, one year ago.

That’s why, Buckingham says, government is responsible. He says they had lots of warnings and notice, and they could have stopped it but didn’t. To think that some medical information was unencrypted is something he calls “incredulous.”