18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

676 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition law, a "statute is without extraterritorial effect unless a clear intent in this respect appears from the express provisions of the statute," which the BIPA does not. Id. at *8. Accordingly, the Court opined that BIPA violations must occur in Illinois in order for Plaintiff to obtain relief. Defendants argued that Plaintiff failed to allege conduct that occurred primarily and substantially in Illinois. The Court agreed with Defendants. Plaintiff asserted that Pindrop analyzed calls originating from Illinois, from Illinois citizens, and from clearly recognizable Illinois phone numbers, and that Amazon "intercepted biometric information" from Illinois callers. Id . at *9. However, the Court determined that Plaintiffs failed to allege that the voiceprints were created, possessed, or stored in Illinois. Defendants contended that Amazon’s data centers were located in in Virginia, Ohio, California, and Oregon and Pindrop was located in Atlanta, Georgia. The Court ruled that a Plaintiff’s residency was not enough to establish an Illinois connection in order to survive a motion to dismiss based on the extraterritoriality defense. For this reason, the Court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss. Mehta, et al. v. Robinhood Financial , Case No. 21-CV-1013 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 8, 2021). Plaintiffs filed a class action asserting claims of negligence, breach of contract, violations of the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), the Customer Records Act (“CRA”), the Consumers Legal Remedies Act (“CLRA), the False Advertising Law (“FAL”), and the Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”), as well as violations of their constitutional right to privacy in connection with Defendant’s alleged insufficient security measures and failure to reimburse for lost funds. Specifically, Plaintiffs asserted that unauthorized third-parties were able to access customers’ accounts and deplete their funds, and that Defendant failed to reimburse them after the losses were incurred. Defendant moved to dismiss on the basis that Plaintiffs’ overarching arguments failed to point to any enforceable promise to reimburse customers and did not adequately allege that Defendant failed to honor any security measure promises. The Court granted in part and denied in part the motion. The Court ruled that Plaintiffs adequately alleged claims for negligence, violation of the CCPA, and the constitutional right to privacy and the unlawful and unfairness prongs of the UCL. The Court reasoned that Plaintiffs’ allegations that unauthorized third-parties were able to access approximately 2,000 customers’ accounts and deplete their funds due to the alleged insufficient security measures was sufficient at the motion to dismiss stage. The Court also found Plaintiffs’ allegations that Defendant failed honor commitments to reimburse them for the losses were sufficient to provide Defendant with notice of the misconduct and thus survived a motion to dismiss. The Court, however, denied the motion with respect to Plaintiffs’ CLRA, UCL and FAL claims. Finally, the Court agreed with Defendant that Plaintiffs failed to provide specifics to support their claim that they had relied to their detriment on Defendant’s data security and customer reimbursement policies, as they did not identify any agreements, statements, or documents which informed them of these policies. Hence, the Court granted the motion as to the reliance claim. For these reasons, the Court granted in part and denied in part Defendant’s motion to dismiss. Neals, et al. v. Partech, Inc., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24542 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 9, 2021). Plaintiff, a former restaurant server at one of Defendant’s restaurant locations in Illinois, filed a class action alleging that Defendants’ use of a biometric timekeeping system violated the Illinois Biometric Information Protection Act (“BIPA”) by collecting, retaining, and disseminating her fingerprints and failing to inform her of its retention policy. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) on the grounds that Plaintiff had not sufficiently alleged that she scanned her fingerprints in Defendant’s system in Illinois since Defendant was incorporated in Nebraska, and therefore not a resident of Illinois and thus the BIPA did not apply. The Court granted the motion, and Defendant subsequently requested the Court enter judgment in Defendant’s favor relating to Plaintiff’s § Section 15(a) claim on the basis of a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and remand that claim back to state court. Plaintiff also moved to stay the case proceedings for 90 days pending two pending rulings from the Illinois Appellate Court on what statute of limitations period applies to BIPA claims ( Tims v. Black Horse Carriers , Case No. 1-20-0563 (1st Dist.) and Marion v. Ring Container Techs., LLC , Case No. 3-20-0184 (3d Dist.)). Plaintiff argued that a motion to sever and remand, not a motion for judgment on the pleadings, would be the proper vehicle to challenge subject-matter jurisdiction. The Court agreed, and thereby viewed the motion as a motion to sever and remand the § 15(a) claim. The Court found that Plaintiff alleged more than a bare procedural violation of the BIPA because not only did she assert that Defendant failed to publish a retention and destruction schedule, but also that Defendant continued to retain, use, and analyze her biometric identifiers indefinitely. The Court noted that the Seventh Circuit has found that violations of the sort alleged by Plaintiff satisfied the injury-in-fact requirement for Article III standing. The Court thus denied Defendant’s motion to sever and remand. The Court also denied