A U.S. District Court Judge allowed a consumer class actionlawsuit to go forward in the massive Target Corp. credit and debit card breach that affected morethan 110 million customers.

In a Dec. 18 ruling, Judge Paul A. Magnuson in St. Paul, Minn.,denied in part and granted in part to dismiss legal arguments madein the class action lawsuit against the nation's second largestretailer.

Magnuson rejected Target's attempt to dismiss claims filed in aseparate lawsuitby a group of financial institutions seeking damages for theretailer's databreach in late 2013. The judge ruled Dec. 2 that theplaintiffs, which included the $282 million CSE Federal CreditUnion in Lake Charles, La., had a plausible case for negligencebecause Target played a key role in allowing cyberthieves to hackinto computer systems and obtain card data and possibly personalinformation of card holders, the documents said.