News & Events

Chicago, May 21, 2018

Employees Lose Bid for Statutory Damages for Alleged BIPA Violation Without Proof of "Injury or Adverse Effect"

Attorneys from Swanson, Martin & Bell, LLP and Verticchio & Verticchio Law Office were awarded summary judgment on behalf of their clients in a proposed class-action regarding the alleged violation of Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

Putative class plaintiffs Robert Yeske, Dan Hopley and Ronald Stout contended that Macoupin Energy, LLC, MaRyan Mining, LLC, Hillsboro Energy, LLC, and Patton Mining, LLC’s utilization of hand scanning technology for employees to “clock in” and “clock out” of their work shifts at the defendants’ coal mines constituted a BIPA violation. The case was filed in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Macoupin County, Illinois.

The defendants argued that the plaintiffs were unable to demonstrate any “injury or adverse effect” and that under Illinois case law, plaintiffs cannot recover for a mere technical violation of BIPA. The defendants also argued that since plaintiffs have not sustained any actual harm, they are not “aggrieved” as required by BIPA. After briefing and oral argument, on April 2, 2018, the Circuit Court of Macoupin County granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment.

“We believe that the Court’s ruling is consistent with both common sense and the intent of the Illinois statute,” said Swanson, Martin & Bell, LLP partner Anthony J. Monaco.

Macoupin Energy, LLC, MaRyan Mining, LLC, Hillsboro Energy, LLC, and Patton Mining, LLC were represented by Monaco as well as Swanson, Martin & Bell, LLP attorneys Brian W. Bell, Jeffrey S. Becker and Valerie C. Lengerich in Chicago and Verticchio & Verticchio Law Office’s Rick Verticchio in Carlinville, Illinois.

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