Facebook has asked a Chicago federal judge to place on hold a lawsuit brought by Cook County and its trial lawyers, who stand to claim 20 percent of whatever the county may receive from the legal action over accusations the social media company improperly allowed data firm Cambridge Analytica to harvest information on about 50 million Facebook users to aid the 2016 election campaign of President Donald Trump.
In a motion filed April 17, Facebook requested U.S. District Judge Robert M. Dow Jr. for more time to formally respond to Cook County’s lawsuit, asserting the matter may rightly belong before a federal judicial panel responsible for determining whether the Cook County suit should be consolidated with two dozen other similar class actions pending against Facebook and Cambridge Analytica in other federal jurisdictions.
Facebook’s motion indicates it has asked the court to stay proceedings in the case until after the federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation weighs in on requests from several of the plaintiffs to consolidate the various cases before a single federal judge. A hearing before the JPML on that matter is scheduled for May 31, according to Facebook’s motion.
Jay Edelson
The case landed in federal court on April 12, when Facebook requested the federal judge remove the case from Cook County Circuit Court, where it had originally been lodged by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and its hired trial lawyers from the firm of Edelson P.C.
On March 23, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and the Edelson attorneys filed suit against both Facebook and Cambridge Analytics, ostensibly on behalf of the people of Illinois, alleging the companies violated state consumer fraud laws. The lawsuit alleges Cambridge Analytica mined data from Facebook users, and then distributed it with the intent to manipulate voting behavior of Illinois residents, and that of millions of other voters throughout the country during the contentious 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign.
The lawsuit alleges Facebook either knew what Cambridge Analytica was doing or all but turned a blind eye to it, allowing Cambridge Analytica to proceed under the purported guise of “academic research,” which granted Cambridge Analytica the ability to violate “mandatory user privacy protections” and gain “access to Facebook user data under false pretenses.”
The lawsuit asks the court to order Facebook and Cambridge to pay at least $50,000 per violation, plus attorney fees.
In its motion requesting a pause in proceedings, Facebook said it anticipates Edelson and Cook County will ask the judge to send the case back to Cook County Circuit Court. Facebook says it believes that question will be best left to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, as it considers the fate of the other 23 cases Facebook currently faces.
Edelson lawyers hired by the county to serve as “special state’s attorneys” include firm principal Jay Edelson and Benjamin Richman, Ari Scharg, David Mindell and Alfred Murray II.
According to a retention agreement signed April 11 by Edelson and Kent Ray, chief of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Civil Actions Bureau, the Edelson firm has been hired on a contingency basis, meaning the firm would not get paid until and unless the county wrests money from the defendants in the lawsuit, either by settlement or judgment.
Should the State’s Attorney’s Office receive any payment from the defendants under the lawsuit, the contract calls for the Edelson firm to be paid 20 percent of whatever the county receives, plus “all reasonable out-of-pocket costs.
The agreement also allows the Edelson firm to “associate with other attorneys” on the case, with “advance notice and written approval” of the State’s Attorney’s Office. The agreement does not specify who these other attorneys may be, but indicates they would be eligible to “share a percentage of any attorneys’ fees awarded and/or costs and expenses reimbursed.”
And in the contract, Edelson advised the State’s Attorney’s Office it “may represent other governmental entities and interested stakeholders in related litigation” and in potential “global or aggregate settlement discussions.”
Of the 24 cases now pending in federal courts, Cook County's appears to be the only one involving a governmental body, to date, according to a review of federal court records. Another private class action lawsuit is also pending in Chicago federal court, brought by attorneys with the Lombard-based Sulaiman Law Group, on behalf of named plaintiffs identified as Brandon M. Carr and Victor J. Comforte II.
Facebook is represented in the cases by attorneys Nathan Eimer, of the firm of Eimer Stahl LLP, of Chicago; and Orin Snyder, Kristin A. Linsley and Joshua P. Lipshutz, of the firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, of New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C.