A Cook County judge could decide, perhaps as soon as April, the fate of millions of claims from people seeking a cut of a $100 million settlement from Google.
A woman is arguing a group of lawyers, who are collecting $35 million for pressing the massive biometric privacy class action against Google, are trying to "baselessly deny" thousands of Google Photo users from a much smaller cut of the settlement, allegedly to allow the lawyers to inflate their claims of success from the case.
The class action was launched in 2015 in Chicago federal district court against Google, alleging the company scanned faces from pictures posted to the Google Photos app. The suit claims Google failed to obtain consent from those people and did not furnish them with certain notices, as required by the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
Robert Ahdoot
| ahdootwolfson.com
A $100 million settlement was reached in which Google would pay $35 million to plaintiffs' attorneys, with the remaining $65 million going to 418,000 members of the class action — with multiple claims per person in some cases — working out to about $150 per member, according to one calculation. Any Illinois resident is eligible who was in a photo posted to Google Photos from May 2015 to April 2022. Claimants had until Sept. 24, 2022 to submit claims via email, with payments to begin in December.
However, the class attorneys, led by the California firm of Ahdoot & Wolfson, had emails sent in late November that told thousands of class members they must submit photos of their identification cards and other data to prove they were eligible for payouts. The photos had to be furnished by Dec. 4 or they would be ineligible. The class attorneys maintained the added requirements would weed out false claims.
In December 2022, Jodi White Jones filed a request to intervene in the case. She wants to challenge the new requirement, contending it would trip up countless members into losing their claims. Jones identified herself as a member of the class action.
Robert Ahdoot, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, told the court in a brief filed in mid-January that the new ID requirement was needed to combat fraud.
"The Court should not accept the proposed intervenor's invitation to scrap well-designed anti-fraud measures implemented by the Settlement Administrator, and instead pay many likely fraudulent claims.The Settlement Administrator did commendable work in this case identifying and responding to systemic, sophisticated fraud aimed at siphoning Settlement Funds away from bona fide claimants to fraudsters and hackers," said Ahdoot in the filing.
Jones' attorneys defended her wish to take part in the case.
"The opposition to Jodi White Jones’s motion to intervene demonstrates why intervention is needed: To protect Class Members who filed valid Claims from Class Counsel who — now that they’ve cashed their $35 million check for fees — have completely abdicated their duty to protect the Class," said lawyer J. Eli Wade-Scott, with the firm of Edelson P.C., of Chicago.
Wade-Scott added that the "main problem" with Ahdoot's position is he doesn't explain "what is so suspicious" about so many claims that ostensibly need to be rooted out.
"The desire to deny these 1.2 million seemingly-valid Claims has far more to do with defending the per-claimant payment range that Class Counsel represented to the Court would occur — $200-$400. In reality, the deal they struck was about $37 a claimant," Wade-Scott argued.
Wade-Scott asserted the settlement requires a 14-day verification window for claims, but the new requirement only allowed 10 days. In addition, Wade-Scott said, "None of the scores of BIPA settlements have ever required such a photo ID in any step of the claim process."
Wade-Scott further alleged the class counsel have "refused to provide any concrete information about the 'indicia of fraud' they claim are attached to the 1.2 million seemingly valid Claims they want to deny."
Wade-Scott continued, saying class counsel "seem more concerned with taking shortcuts or favoring certain groups of Class Members for reasons they won’t disclose."
A hearing is scheduled to weigh the competing arguments on April 14 before Cook County Judge Anna M. Loftus.
Plaintiffs have been represented by Robert Ahdoot, Tina Wolfson and Theodore W. Maya, of Ahdoot & Wolfson, of Burbank, California; John C. Carey and David P. Milian, of Carey Rodriguez Milian, of Miami, Florida; Frank S. Hedin, of Hedin Hall, of Miami; Scott A. Bursor, of Bursor & Fisher, of Miami; and Katrina Carroll and Kyle A. Shamberg, of Carlson Lynch, of Chicago.
There have been thousands of biometric privacy suits lodged in Illinois and other states. In Illinois under BIPA, plaintiffs may seek damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation. When multiplied across potentially thousands or millions of plaintiffs, the damages can mount into the millions or billions of dollars, should the case go to trial. This risk has prompted Google and many other companies to settle.