Logistics giant Neovia has joined the ever increasing list of employers targeted by class action lawsuits asserting they allegedly improperly required workers to scan fingerprints under the stringent mandates of Illinois' biometrics privacy law.
In a class action filed in Cook County Circuit Court on June 20, plaintiff Jesus Ruelas, on behalf of himself and others, is accusing Neovia Logistics Service of requiring employees to scan their fingerprints to prove their identities when punching the clock, but allegedly not first obtaining proper permissions or providing disclosures, practices the suit contends violate the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
The complaint is concerned with whether Neovia, a global leader in third-party logistics, was allegedly intentional in its supposed disregard of BIPA protocols at its warehouse in Joliet.
The lawsuit accuses Neovia, much like thousands of other Illinois employers who have been hit with similar lawsuits, of allegedly not first securing pre-authorized written consent from workers before requiring the fingerprint scans, or providing them with notices detailing how the company might handle the fingerprint scan data. And like others sued under the BIPA law, Neovia also faces the very real possibility of extreme losses should damages be awarded.
Under the BIPA law, plaintiffs are allowed to demand damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation in which someone’s biometrics are scanned. This could mean employers would be liable for up to $5,000 for each time an employee scanned a fingerprint in the workplace. Small businesses looking for workplace efficiency through technology face the same potential fines as their corporate counterparts if they are not BIPA complaint.
Depending on the number of employees involved, Neovia could be looking at potentially massive court-ordered payouts.
Fast food chain White Castle, which faced a similar lawsuit for all of its Illinois employees, has estimated in court that they could face up to $17 billion in damages for fingerprint scans by about 9,500 workers dating back five years before they were sued under the BIPA law.
Despite the risks to the state economy from such crippling judgments, the Illinois Supreme Court and other Illinois judges have consistently rebuffed nearly every effort by employers to limit the law's reach. The Illinois Supreme Court, for instance, notably rejected efforts to classify workplace BIPA claims as workers’ compensation claims, which would have kicked most cases against employers out of court.
Businesses have warned that, without relief from courts or changes to the law from legislators, the Illinois Supreme Court's rulings will result in economic devastation from "astronomical damages" that put entire companies out of business, over technical violations of the law that resulted in no concrete harm to workers.
Plaintiff are demanding the damages allowed under the BIPA law, or $1,000-$5,000 per employee fingerprint scan.
Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Douglas M. Werman and John J. Frawley, of Werman Salas P.C., of Chicago.