The Hooters restaurant chain has landed in court, among the latest employers in Chicago and elsewhere sued under an Illinois privacy law for allegedly improperly collecting and storing its employees fingerprints, even though employees use their fingerprints to clock in and out of work shifts and accurately track their hours on the job.
A federal judge in Chicago has pressed enter on a class action against a Canadian maker of a computer diagnostics and cleanup program plaintiffs say didn’t do much of what the company said.
A spike in the number of lawsuits in Illinois over biometrics data is a result of such data becoming more commonly used or misused by both business and social media. But whatever the reason, businesses should look for more and more of these lawsuits in coming days, a Washington, D.C.-based labor and employment attorney warns, thanks to a unique facet of Illinois' law
Already facing a surge of lawsuits under a state technology privacy law, business groups have expressed relief at Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner’s decision to veto a new state technology privacy law regulating how and when smartphone apps and the businesses that develop and deploy them must notify users their physical locations are being logged – a law the business groups say will only offer the same trial lawyers another avenue to sue them.
Alden Management Services, which operates numerous nursing homes and other care facilities throughout the Chicago area and northern Illinois, has come in for legal examination, along with other operators of Chicago area care facilities, as attorneys for employees in these health care organizations have brought yet more class action lawsuits against their employers under an Illinois law designed to govern the collection of use of so-called “biometric” identifiers, such as fingerprints.
Lawyers are scrimmaging in Chicago federal court over $21 million in fees for handling the nationwide concussion lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletics Association, which resulted in a $70 million settlement to improve “medical monitoring” of college athletes at risk of brain injuries.
A federal judge has tossed a cluster of class action lawsuits launched against online personal information listing providers, including Spokeo, Intelius. InstantCheckmate and BeenVerified, saying a web search advertising technique didn’t violate plaintiffs’ rights to control the use of their identity simply by using a person's name in an ad designed to steer people to their online people search products.
While a Texas lawyer and his client say their efforts helped reduce other attorneys’ multi-million dollar payday under a $56 million class action settlement deal, a federal judge has rejected their attempts to grab a $59,000 share of that settlement, saying their efforts were redundant and produced nothing but an opportunity for them to grab some quick cash.
Edelson P.C., a Chicago law firm known for launching class actions over digital privacy issues, has set its sights on three more employers – the operator of 51 Illinois senior living and care facilities; the operator of two dozen Illinois nursing and rehabilitation centers; and the bakery behind the Otis Spunkmeyer and La Brea Bread brands – accusing each of breaking an Illinois biometrics privacy law.
While saying he was concerned by the prospect of two lawyers attempting to claim “$550,000 for just over three months of work,” a federal magistrate judge has still recommended they receive more than $500,000 each for their work in collecting a $3.75 million class action settlement from the makers of a smartphone-controlled sex toy alleged to have essentially spied on users.
A federal judge’s decision awarding at least $15 million to lawyers who secured a $56 million settlement in a class action against a cruise line and others who allegedly masked telemarketing calls as non-profit political surveys, marks one of the largest such payouts to attorneys under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
A Texas lawyer embroiled in a racketeering action accusing him and others of being “serial objectors” out to simply claim a chunk of others’ negotiated class action settlements has inserted himself into another massive class action deal, asking a federal judge to award him money for representing an organization whose objection to the attorney fee request in a $56 million deal to end a class action against a cruise line, phone poll operator and timeshare company, helped reduce other attorneys’ multi-million dollar payday.
An Illinois man is pursuing a class action complaint worth at least $5 million against Bose Corp., accusing the maker of high-end wireless headphones, speakers and other audio equipment of selling customer data secretly collected by an app paired with the headphones and other consumer gear.
The courts could risk a flood of new litigation, which could chill efforts to object to future class action settlements, if a judge allows prominent Chicago class action trial law firm Edelson P.C. to continue with a class action lawsuit accusing rival Bandas Law Firm and others, of racketeering for acting as “professional objectors,” bent on extorting payoffs, according to a motion filed by Bandas.
A Chicago federal judge has signed off on an award of more than $15 million – and potentially, as much as $18.9 million – in attorney fees for lawyers who secured a $76 million settlement from a cruise line and other associated companies accused of using nonprofit surveys to mask illegal telemarketing calls.
Johnson & Bell, a prominent Chicago civil defense law firm, has taken aim at the firm of Edelson P.C., alleging the Chicago-based firm which ranks as one of the country’s leading filers of digital privacy and technology class actions should be made to pay for using the courts to spread “lies and defamatory statements” as part of a continuing “self-serving publicity tour.”
A Chicago federal judge has dismissed a class action complaint against the San Francisco-based developer of the Down to Lunch smartphone app, saying app users – and not the software itself – are responsible for “spam-vite” promotional text messages sent to other people’s phones.
The maker of a high-tech Bluetooth-enabled personal intimacy device has reached a $3.7 million settlement with a woman, on behalf of classes of other plaintiffs, who had accused the company of improperly collecting private information in a class action complaint filed last year.
A Chicago federal judge has green-lighted a potential $76 million settlement in a million-member class action suit, which alleged a cruise line and other companies masked telemarketing calls as nonprofit surveys. The judge, however, held off for now approving what could be as much as $24.5 million in fees for plaintiffs’ attorneys – fees defendants are alleging are “excessive” and “unreasonable.”
