A Wisconsin supplier of hospital bed linens is set to pay $790,000 to settle a class action lawsuit that accused the company of technical violations of Illinois’ biometrics privacy law, for the way it required workers in Illinois to scan fingerprints when punching the clock.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs are poised to claim 35% of that total, or about $277,000. Workers who are part of the plaintiffs’ class will receive about $625 each, according to court documents.
Next month, a federal judge in Chicago will decide whether to approve a settlement agreement to end the legal action against Superior Health Linens, brought under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
The lawsuit dates back to February 2019, when attorneys with the firms of Edelson P.C., of Chicago, and The Fish Law Firm P.C., of Naperville, filed the complaint against Superior in Cook County Circuit Court.
While the company is based in Cudahy, Wis., Superior serves hospitals and health care providers in the Chicago area, as well, from locations in suburban Batavia and Joliet.
The action against Superior asserted the company required workers to scan their fingerprints to verify their identity when punching the clock when beginning and ending work shifts. However, according to the complaint, the company did not first secure written authorization from the workers consenting to the fingerprint scans, nor did the company provide various notices allegedly required by the BIPA law.
The lawsuit was similar to thousands of others filed in Cook County court and elsewhere in the state under the BIPA law, aimed at employers who use so-called biometric time clocks to log workers’ hours and prevent “punch fraud,” a practice in which co-workers punch the clock on behalf of other workers, to hide instances in which they may arrive to work late or leave early.
While a number of lawsuits under the BIPA law have targeted tech giants, like Facebook or Google, the vast majority of such actions have taken aim at employers, of all sizes and types.
Under the Illinois BIPA law, employers could face potentially crippling judgments, should the class actions go to trial. Under the law, plaintiffs can demand damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation. The law has been interpreted to define individual violations as each time a worker punches the clock. For companies that employ dozens or hundreds of workers, this could amount to potential damages quickly running into the millions of dollars, if not more.
At the same time, Illinois courts have to this point, sharply limited the legal defenses available to employers to escape such lawsuits. The Illinois Supreme Court, most notably, declared in 2019 that people do not demonstrate they suffered any actual injuries to bring potentially massive class actions under the BIPA law. They only need to allege a business or employer may have violated the law’s technical provisions to justify claims for multiple millions, or even billions of dollars in damages.
Faced with such a legal landscape in the courts, a number of defendants have begun to opt to settle the claims against them. Settlements have ranged from the hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions.
After the lawsuit against Superior was filed, the company transferred the case to federal court.
Proceedings in the case continued until December 2020, when the plaintiffs and Superior presented the court with their proposed settlement. The deal was struck on behalf of 790 people who have worked at Superior since February 2014. The settlement excluded anyone who worked for Superior in that time frame, but who were represented by a union.
The settlement provided for a gross payout of $1,000 per employee. After various costs, including attorney fees are removed, the settlement would pay $625 per employee, who would simply receive a check in the mail, according to court documents.
On March 23, attorneys with the Edelson and Fish firms formally asked the court to sign off on their request for fees equal to 35% of the total settlement.
The judge has yet to rule on that request.
The plaintiffs have been represented by attorneys J. Eli Wade-Scott and Benjamin H. Richman, of the Edelson firm; and David Fish and John Kunze, of the Fish firm.
Superior Health Linens has been represented by attorneys Michael D. Hayes, Anne Marie Mayette and Tessa K. Jacob, of the firm of Husch Blackwell LLP, of Chicago and Kansas City.