A jury in federal court in Chicago has returned a verdict for the plaintiff class in the first trial of a case involving claims under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). Rogers v. BNSF Railway Co., No. 1:19-cv-03083 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 12, 2022).
The plaintiff, on behalf of himself and a class of other truck drivers, claimed he was fingerprinted when he entered BNSF’s railyards to make pickups and deliveries and that BNSF violated Section 15(b) of the BIPA by collecting his biometric data without first giving him written notice and obtaining his informed consent.
After deliberating for approximately an hour, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and the class. It found that BNSF recklessly or intentionally violated the BIPA 45,600 times, or one time for each member of the class. The verdict form presented to the jury did not ask the jury to calculate damages, asking only for the total number of negligent, reckless, or intentional violations. Shortly after the jury returned its verdict, Judge Matthew Kennelly entered judgment in favor of the plaintiff class and against BNSF in the amount of $228 million, which equals $5,000 per class member.
Earlier in the case, the court granted the plaintiff’s motion for class certification and certified a class of “[a]ll individuals whose fingerprint information was registered using an Auto-Gate System at one of BNSF’s four Illinois facilities” during a period dating back five years from the filing of the...
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