About 1,200 current and former employees of Chicago-based deli meats, ham and bacon maker DaBecca Natural Foods could be in line for payouts of up to $1,300 each as part of a deal to end a class action lawsuit over the company’s use of timeclocks that scan workers’ fingerprints.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs are in line to receive as much as $350,000 of the nearly $1 million settlement fund, according to documents posted to the website of the plaintiffs’ lawyer, David J. Fish.
On May 22, Cook County Circuit Judge Helen Demacopoulos signed off on the settlement agreement in the class action brought against DaBecca by attorney Fish, of Naperville.
The lawsuit had been filed in February 2019 by Fish, on behalf of named plaintiffs Danielle Parker and Craig Reed.
According to the complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court, Parker and Reed each worked at DaBecca’s Chicago meat processing facility in 2018. The complaint did not specify the jobs held by either plaintiff.
The complaint accused DaBecca of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act in the way in which the company required workers to use its biometric timeclocks. The devices required employees to scan their fingerprints to verify their identities when punching in and out of work shifts.
The complaint, which was very similar to most of the hundreds of other class actions brought against employers in Illinois under the BIPA law in recent years, accused the company of failing to properly notify workers and the public of its procedures and policies for scanning, storing, sharing and ultimately disposing of its employees’ fingerprint scans. Further, the complaint accused DaBecca of wrongly scanning employee fingerprints without first obtaining written consent from employees to scan their fingerprints.
While the violations of the law were technical in nature, the employees never needed to assert their identities were stolen or that they suffered any concrete harm. Under a 2019 Illinois Supreme Court ruling, the mere violation of one of the law’s provisions means employers and other companies could be in line for big money payouts should they be sued under the BIPA law.
Under the law, plaintiffs in such cases are allowed to demand damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation, with a violation potentially defined as each time an employee scanned a fingerprint. This could mean employers could be on the hook for potentially many millions of dollars, should the case go to trial.
According to the settlement agreement, DaBecca continued to deny the accusations it violated the BIPA law, but said the settlement deal “is desirable to avoid the time, risk, and expense” of continuing to defend itself beyond the nearly year and a half the case had already been in court, and “to avoid the substantial risk posed by the Class’s claims for liquidated damages.”
The plaintiffs and DaBecca agreed to divide DaBecca’s employees into two different classes for the purposes of the settlement.
The first class included 435 non-union employees who were employed by DaBecca from February 2014 to March 2020, when the judge granted preliminary approval to the agreement to end the lawsuit. The two sides had signed the deal in late January and early February.
The second class included a group of 725 DaBecca workers who were represented by a union.
Those in the first class were scheduled to receive $1,300 each, according to the settlement. Those in the second class were slated to get $599 each.
Parker and Reed also will receive an additional $5,000 each, under the deal.
Under the settlement, Fish agreed to request fees of no more than 35% of the total settlement fund.
DaBecca has been represented in the action by attorneys with the firm of Laner Muchin Ltd., of Chicago.