EAST ST. LOUIS – Former chief 20th circuit judge John Baricevic, whose certificate to sue Chicago area nursing homes collapsed on appeal, added ten plaintiffs and 17 defendants in a bid to reverse the decision.
The tactic may have backfired, because the nursing homes removed the suit from St. Clair County circuit court to U.S. district court.
On Sept. 23, they moved to dismiss it or transfer it to district court in Chicago.
Baricevic, son C.J. Baricevic, and John Driscoll of St. Louis represent Saroya Roberson, who worked at Sycamore Village in Swansea.
They filed a Biometric Privacy Act (BIPA) class complaint for her in 2017, claiming invasion of privacy through fingerprint technology for Sycamore’s time clock.
They claimed violations occurred throughout Symphony Post Acute Care Network, and they named all homes of the network as defendants.
Associate Judge Kevin Hoerner certified a class that way in March 2019.
Last November, Fifth District judges found Roberson could represent a class only for Sycamore Village.
“This is the only nursing home that is owned and operated by a defendant in this lawsuit,” Justice Randy Moore wrote.
He wrote that there might be some relationship between owners of other locations, but those entities weren’t defendants.
The Fifth District remanded the suit to Hoerner for proceedings on behalf of 552 past and present Sycamore Village workers.
Hoerner granted Roberson leave to amend the complaint this July.
Her lawyers produced 309 pages of allegations in 169 counts.
Nursing home counsel Richard McArdle of Chicago removed the complaint to district court on Sept. 2, asserting diversity of citizenship.
He claimed some persons in the class Hoerner certified aren’t Illinois citizens.
He claimed the Sycamore Village class included nine members in Missouri, three in Michigan, and one each in Massachusetts and Washington.
His colleague Joseph Donado moved to dismiss the complaint on Sept. 23, claiming it lumped defendants together without specific pleadings.
Donado claimed plaintiffs should seek relief through workers’ compensation.
He claimed federal employment law preempted claims of nine plaintiffs who belong to unions.
He listed four from Service Employees International, four from United Food and Commercial Workers, and a Teamster.
He claimed their collective bargaining agreements cover time clock disputes.
On the same date he moved for transfer to the Northern District of Illinois.
He claimed all plaintiffs but Roberson reside there.
“If anything, plaintiffs are better served by having the case transferred to the Northern District of Illinois where more of them live,” Donado wrote.
He claimed the complaint still names defendants that didn’t employ any plaintiff.
Magistrate Mark Beatty will preside unless a party declines magistrate jurisdiction.
If that happens a district judge would preside.