An Illinois federal district court judge has given final approval to a $9.39 million settlement in a lawsuit against White Castle by a group of employees who claimed that the company had violated their rights under the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The case is Latrina Cothron et al. v. White Castle System Inc. et al., Case Number 1:19-cv-00382, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The settlement marks the end of an epic case that resulted in a landmark Illinois Supreme Court ruling on privacy claims. That Court held that a BIPA claim accrues each time data is unlawfully collected and disclosed, not just the first time it occurs.
Latrina Cothron filed a proposed class action lawsuit against White Castle in December 2018, alleging that the company violated BIPA when it collected her fingerprint data without her written consent and failed to tell her how or whether it used, stored, or disposed of it. White Castle required employees to use a fingerprint scan to track their work time.
The judge denied White Castle's motion for judgment on the pleadings in 2020. White Castle appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, arguing that Cothron's claims were time-barred and that the Court should not consider her to have separate BIPA claims each time she scanned her finger to track her time. In response, the Seventh Circuit certified whether BIPA claims arise from each unlawful data collection and dissemination or just the first to the Illinois Supreme Court. In February 2023, the Illinois Supreme Court issued its decision, finding that BIPA claims accrue not just with the first unlawful data collection but with each data collection. Therefore, the Court found that a BIPA claim accrued every time Cothron or another employee scanned a finger and White Castle stored it in its database, allowing the employee to access pay stubs or White Castle computer systems.
The ruling was a significant blow to White Castle and other defendants, who immediately faced substantial damages awards that could easily have led to financial ruin. As a result, the federal district court judge gave preliminary approval to the $9.39 million deal about three months ago and now has given final approval, finding it to be a "fair and reasonable settlement."
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