Thus, the appeals court reasoned, since there is no “injury” claimed in BIPA class actions, there is no conflict with the workers’ comp law, which requires employees to prove they were injured.įollowing that appellate ruling, Cook County Judge Sanjay Tailor in September denied Weathertech’s similar attempt to use the workers’ comp law to win dismissal of the BIPA class action against them.įaced with the prospects of potentially “crippling” financial losses, a growing number of employers opted in 2020 and into 2021 to cut their losses and settle BIPA class actions. They need only allege their employers failed to follow the BIPA law’s technical provisions. Under an Illinois Supreme Court ruling, plaintiffs targeting employers with BIPA class actions don’t need to demonstrate they were actually harmed – or “injured” – to press their big-dollar claims. However, a state appeals court, in a different BIPA case, brought against a nursing home on Chicago’s South Side, ruled last year that there was no conflict. Multiplied over an entire workforce, the price tag could run into the millions or even billions of dollars, depending on the size of the company.įurther, courts in Illinois have routinely shut down efforts to use legal defenses or Illinois other labor laws to sidestep the BIPA claims.įor instance, Weathertech, like other employers, attempted to argue Illinois’ workers’ compensation law should foreclose the ability of its workers to bring a BIPA-related claim. And under the law, violations could be defined as each time an employee scans their fingerprints. The BIPA law allows for damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation. Under the BIPA law, employers could face hefty court-ordered payouts. They also accuse employers of failing to provide written notice to employees explaining how the fingerprints would be stored, used, shared and ultimately destroyed. Specifically, such lawsuits typically accuse employers of failing to secure written authorization from their employees before requiring the fingerprint scans. The class action, like thousands of other similar lawsuits brought against Illinois employers in recent years under the BIPA law, accused Weathertech of allegedly failing to abide by the BIPA law’s technical notice and consent requirements when deploying the technology. Such identity verification technology has been widely deployed at job sites throughout the country to combat so-called “punch fraud,” in which workers might punch the clock on behalf of a co-worker who has either arrived late or left early, so as to make it appear the co-worker was on the job, when they were not. The biometric systems require workers to verify their identities by scanning their fingerprints when punching the clock when beginning and ending work shifts. Jenkins, of the firm of Stephan Zouras LLP, of Chicago. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys Ryan F. The class action lawsuit was brought on behalf of the action’s named plaintiff, Weathertech employee Wardell Brown, and all other Weathertech employees in Illinois who tracked their work hours using so-called biometric timeclock systems. Weathertech and ADP were sued in May 2019 under the Illinois Biometrics Information Privacy Act. The lawsuit, styled as a third party complaint, asserts ADP and Paychex operated the timeclocks, and didn't educate and warn Weathertech of its potential liability under Illinois law. MacNeil, which does business as Weathertech, is based in southwest suburban Bolingbrook, where it produces a popular line of all-weather car floormats, trunk liners and other heavy duty rubber car and truck accessories. Late last year, Weathertech’s parent company, MacNeil Automotive Products, filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court against two human resources services vendors ADP LLC and Paychex Inc. ![]() Vehicle accessory maker WeatherTech is suing the vendors that supplied its worker timeclocks, as the manufacturer seeks to rid itself of liability – and any potential court-ordered payouts – under a class action lawsuit brought by Weathertech workers who claim the manufacturer violated an Illinois biometrics privacy law by making workers scan their fingerprints when punching the clock.
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