EAST ST. LOUIS - Kansas City area lawyers Jayson Brown and Jason Watkins, who jumped into Illinois fingerprint litigation with two potential class actions, voluntarily dismissed both cases within weeks of filing them.
Brown and Watkins dismissed an action against Kraft Heinz at U.S. district court on Nov. 21, eight days after dismissing one against a group of McDonald’s restaurants.
They sued Kraft Heinz for Jason Darnell of Wilsonville on Nov. 6, claiming he could represent workers at Kraft Heinz in Granite City and throughout the state.
They alleged violation of state law requiring employers to state the purposes of collecting fingerprints, obtain written consent, and provide retention and destruction schedules in accordance with the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
Brown and Watkins claimed Wilson wouldn’t have provided biometric information if he had known Kraft Heinz didn’t comply with the law.
The law provides liquidated damages of $1,000 for a negligent violation and $5,000 for a reckless and intentional violation.
Four of seven Supreme Court justices ruled this year that each scan counts as a violation, meaning a worker could allege hundreds of violations per year.
The statute of limitations in the law runs five years, so a steady worker could claim more than $2 million for two negligent scans a day and more than $10 million for reckless scans.
The law does not require a plaintiff to allege harm or breach of confidentiality.
Business owners call it annihilative liability.
The Supreme Court majority suggested legislators might enact less drastic penalties but that hasn’t happened.
In that atmosphere, the arrival of Brown and Watkins from 270 miles away made sense.
Three days after they filed Wilson’s suit, they sued Estel Foods, operator of McDonald’s restaurants, for Antonya Wren of Cahokia Heights.
James Estel Williams Jr. of Granite City owns Estel Foods.
Brown and Watkins dismissed the actions without prejudice and stated the parties would bear their own costs.
That might not amount to much for Kraft Heinz and Estel Foods, which hadn’t sent lawyers to court to start defending them.