Retaining rings manufacturer Smalley Steel Rings is facing a class action lawsuit for allegedly asking job applicants about their family medical history.
The lawsuit accuses the company of violating the Illinois Genetic Information Privacy Act (GIPA), which generally prohibits employers from using genetic information in making employment decisions.
The plaintiffs, Guadalupe Garcia and Cierra Clark, filed the suit on behalf of themselves and other allegedly similarly situated employees.
They claim that Smalley Steel Rings asked them and other job applicants to provide family medical history as part of the hiring process, which they say amounts to a violation of the GIPA law.
The lawsuit was filed Jan. 8 in Cook County Circuit Court.
The lawsuit is seeking a potentially big payout from Smalley of up to $15,000 per alleged violation, as allowed under GIPA, plus attorney fees.
The plaintiffs seek to expand the action to include anyone who applied for a job at Smalley in the past five years.
In recent months, a growing group of plaintiffs' lawyers have filed similar GIPA-related class actions against dozens of other large Illinois employers, seeking potentially massive paydays. The lawsuits have followed a similar pattern to those set by litigation under Illinois' controversial Biometric Information Privacy Act, which has resulted in a litany of multi-million dollar settlements, and hundreds of millions of dollars in collective attorney fees paid to class action lawyers who file the suits.
Legal observers believe trial lawyers, including those who have reaped big paydays from the BIPA-related lawsuits, are now trying to similarly land big money from the similar GIPA lawsuits.
Plaintiffs are represented in the action against Smalley by attorneys Mark R. Miller, Nicholas P. Kelly and Juan M. Garibay, of the firm of Wallace Miller, of Chicago; and David J. DiSabato and Kyle D. McLean, of Siri & Glimstad, of New York.