A class action lawsuit accuses packaging and protective solutions company Pregis of allegedly wrongly requiring workers to scan their fingerprints when punching the clock, and then allegedly shorting workers overtime pay.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of lead plaintiff Charles Brownlow, a former employee, on Dec. 11 in Cook County Circuit Court.
The suit alleges that the company violated the Illinois Minimum Wage Law and the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act by not paying employees for all their hours worked due to an automatic rounding policy. The policy reportedly rounded time punches to the nearest quarter hour, allegedly depriving hourly employees of overtime wages.
The lawsuit further alleges the company violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by scanning worker fingerprints allegedly without first getting worker consent and without providing them with certain notices required by the BIPA law concerning how the fingerprint scans would be stored, used, shared and ultimately destroyed.
The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring Pregis to pay a class of workers unpaid overtime wages owed under the IMWL, plus treble damages, as well as monthly statutory damages at the rate of 5% per month, and to pay workers damages of $1,000-$5,000 per alleged violation under the BIPA law.
The lawsuit could prove particularly costly under recent Illinois Supreme Court decisions, in which the high court has determined that the law should be interpreted to define individual violations each time a worker fingerprint is scanned, dating back over the previous five years. Under that reasoning, damages can quickly climb into the many millions of dollars or more, when multiplied across entire workforces.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Douglas M. Werman and Maureen A. Salas, of Werman Salas P.C., of Chicago; Michael A. Josephson and Andrew W. Dunlap, of Josephson Dunlap LLP, of Houston; and Richard J. (Rex) Burch, of Bruchner Burch PLLC, of Houston.