Two major Chicago area hospital groups, Advocate Aurora Health and hospitals operated by Loyola Medicine, have been targeted by class actions accusing them of improperly requiring workers to scan their fingerprints to access drug dispensing systems at their hospitals.
In nearly identical claims, attorneys from the firm of Stephan Zouras, of Chicago, filed two class actions lawsuits on February 7 in Cook County Circuit Court.
Ryan Stephan
| stephanzouras.com
Additionally, in a separate lawsuit, named plaintiff Andres Socorro, on behalf of himself and others, also filed a class action lawsuit against Advocate lllinois Masonic Medical Center and Advocate Aurora Health. for similar alleged BIPA violations.
As with thousands of similar complaints filed under the BIPA law, these lawsuits accuse the defendant employers of improperly requiring workers to scan their fingerprints to verify their identity. In both lawsuits, alleged BIPA violations center on the supposed improper collection of biometric information to obtain access to regulated substances; specifically, the dispensing of pharmaceuticals at Pyxis Medstations.
The named defendants in both cases have used and continue to use the Pyxis biometric enabled medicine dispensing systems. These automated dispensing systems provide clinicians with an efficient means of disbursing medications in a safe, secure environment, and are designed to combat drug thefts.
The system authenticates the user by capturing and utilizing biometric identifiers. The Pyxis system also allows integration with other devices, software, servers and such. As with any similar system, users must first be enrolled into the system in order to obtain access. Biometric data is captured, analyzed and stored for retrieval when a user attempts to access the Pyxis Medstation for their prescribed medication.
Almost without exception, BIPA violation lawsuits have contended that workers are being required to use these scanning systems without first securing consent from the workers or providing them with notices required under the BIPA law.
The lawsuits are part of a burgeoning trend of similar class actions, accusing employers and other companies of violating the BIPA law. They have become commonplace in Cook County's courts since 2015, when a select group of plaintiffs' lawyers, including the Stephan Zouras firm, first used the BIPA law to file such class actions.
The law made national headlines in 2020 and 2021, when over a million Facebook users in Illinois received checks from the social media company from a $650 million class action settlement alleging Facebook violated the BIPA law.
Under the BIPA law, plaintiffs are allowed to demand damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation. The law has been interpreted to define individual violations as each instance in which someone’s biometrics are scanned, as much as $5,000 for each time an employee scanned a fingerprint in the workplace should they lose at trial.
Both plaintiffs are demanding a trial by jury, seeking damages of $1,000 to $5,000 per violation, as allowed by the BIPA law, plus attorney fees and court costs.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Ryan F. Stephan, James B. Zouras, Catherine T. Mitchell and Anna M. Ceragiolo, of the Stephan Zouras firm.