A Cook County judge has signed off on a $25 million to end a sweeping class action lawsuit that accused human resource management technology vendor ADP of violating Illinois’ biometrics privacy law in the way it supplied equipment and support to employers who required their workers to scan their fingerprints when punching the clock at work.
On Feb. 10, Cook County Judge David B. Atkins granted final approval to the settlement.
Under the deal, lawyers for the plaintiffs will receive $8.75 million in attorney fees, or one-third of the total settlement funds. The plaintiffs have been represented by attorneys with the firms of Edelson P.C.; Stephan Zouras LLP; and McGuire Law P.C., all of Chicago.
More than 40,000 people who filed claims under the settlement could receive about $375 each, according to a brief filed by those lawyers in court on Feb. 1.
The settlement marks the largest class action payout collected yet by plaintiffs’ lawyers from human resources tech vendors under class actions brought under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA.)
The settlement brings to a close a consolidated litigation that dates back to 2017, when McGuire lawyers first filed suit against ADP. That lawsuit was followed in 2018 by other actions brought by the Edelson and Stephan Zouras firms.
The Cook County courts consolidated the cases into one proceeding before Judge Atkins, as they all centered on nearly identical allegations against ADP.
Specifically, the lawsuits accused ADP of allegedly failing to obtain written authorization from those working for its employer clients before those employer clients required their workers to scan their fingerprints on so-called biometric timeclocks when beginning and ending their work shifts.
Further, the lawsuits alleged ADP didn’t provide legal notice to those workers concerning how ADP would store, share and ultimately destroy the scanned prints.
The lawsuits were one of thousands of actions brought in Illinois courts under the Illinois BIPA law. The vast bulk of those actions have targeted employers directly for alleged BIPA violations related to their use of technology requiring workers to scan a biometric identifier, such as fingerprints, hand print, or facial geometry, when punching the clock or accessing secure facilities, such as retail cash drawer rooms or medical drug closets.
However, many actions have also been brought to bear on HR tech and timeclock vendors, like ADP.
For instance, class actions have been brought against ADP rivals Kronos and NovaTime, among others. The action against Kronos remains pending in federal court, while NovaTime settled in late 2020 for as much as $14 million.
Like Kronos, ADP fought the BIPA class actions for three years.
Like many other BIPA actions, plaintiffs in the ADP actions had initially sought damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation, as allowed under the law. With tens of thousands of workers in Illinois potentially using ADP technology over the past five years, the lawsuits could have placed ADP at risk of judgments worth many millions or even billions of dollars.
In 2019, Judge Atkins had initially granted ADP’s request to dismiss the case, ruling he did not believe tech vendors like ADP could be held liable under the BIPA law for the alleged failures of its employer clients to abide by the law’s notice and consent provisions.
However, the plaintiffs amended their complaint, and the lawsuit continued to play out. Judge Atkins never ruled again on that question.
Instead, the case went to mediation, where the parties reached their $25 million agreement in the summer of 2020.
Judge Atkins granted the deal preliminary approval in November 2020.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers described the deal as “a record-breaking entry in the history of BIPA settlements arising from the use of biometric timeclocks in the employment setting.”
“Against a backdrop where vendor claims are commonly released for nothing, and where no one has settled a case of this size against an adversary like ADP, this Settlement is outstanding,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote in their Feb. 1 brief.
They noted the settlement also does not close the door on the law firms and others continuing to press lawsuits against ADP’s employer customers, as well, for potentially even bigger collective payouts in months and years to come.
ADP has been represented in the action by attorney David Layden, from the firm of Jenner & Block, of Chicago.
The plaintiffs have been represented by attorneys J. Eli Wade-Scott and Jay Edelson, of Edelson P.C.; James B. Zouras and Ryan F. Stephan, of the Stephan Zouras firm; and Myles McGuire and Evan Meyers, of McGuire Law.