18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 419 back to the original agency. Defendants argued that the Illinois Antitrust Act did apply to labor services and that "no-poach" and "wage-fixing" conspiracies were exempt from its scope. Id. at *1-2. The Court, however, ruled that the although the federal Clayton Act antitrust law and the Illinois Antitrust Law contained a labor exemption, the structure of the Illinois statute "does not necessarily translate to a conclusion that the Illinois legislature intended to provide a blanket immunization for labor services only in Illinois." Id . at 2. Defendants further argued that Plaintiff failed to allege a per se violation under the Illinois Antitrust Act. The Court disagreed with Defendants’ contention. It found that certain agreements or practices were conclusively presumed to be unreasonable and therefore illegal because of their “pernicious effect on competition and lack of any redeeming virtue.” Id . at 3. The Court concluded that no-poaching and wage-fixing agreements were viewed in the same way. The Court concluded that the “restraint agreed to by all participants was plainly horizontal, competitors agreeing not to solicit or hire each other’s workers and to fix wages, which would be per se illegal.” Id . The Court ruled therefore that Plaintiff sufficiently alleged a per se violation of the Antitrust Act. Accordingly, the Court denied Defendants’ motion to dismiss. Thornley, et al. v. CDW-Government, LLC, Case No. 2020-CH-4346 (Ill. Cir. Ct. June 25, 2021). Plaintiff filed a class action alleging that Defendant contracted with a third-party to sell a program to the Chicago Police Department that identified and housed a database of biometric information in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”). Defendant filed a motion to dismiss, which the Court granted. Plaintiffs asserted that Defendant contracted with Wynndalco Enterprises, which agreed to purchase a database from Clearview AI, an artificial intelligence company that sells a database of three billion facial scans and allows users to identify individuals by uploading photographs and comparing those photographs to the facial scans using biometric facial recognition identifiers. Id . at 1-2. Wynndalco thereafter resold the database to Defendant, which in turn sold it to the Chicago Police Department by electronic distribution. Id . at 2. Plaintiffs alleged that Defendant provided the Police Department with a “quote confirmation” for the database. Id. Defendant argued that Plaintiffs’ claim brought under § 15(c) of the BIPA – which bars private entities in possession of biometric identifiers from selling, leasing trading, or profiting from the information – should be dismissed pursuant to the government contractor exemption. Plaintiffs asserted that whether Defendant acted pursuant to its agreement remained an unresolved factual issue and that Defendant procured the Clearview AI database through a third- party “because it was unauthorized to do so” as a private entity. Id . at 5. The Court agreed that under § 15(c), every private entity is unauthorized to buy or sell biometric identifiers, unless that entity was exempt by another applicable provision. Here, the Court found that the complaint expressly alleged that Defendant’s sale of the database to the Chicago Police Department occurred at the Police Department’s request, which exempted Defendant due to a contract with a governmental agency. For these reasons, the Court granted Defendant’s motion to dismiss. Walker, et al. v. Chasteen , 2021 Ill. LEXIS 612 (Ill. June 17, 2021). Plaintiffs in two separate class actions challenged the constitutionality of 735 ILCS 5/15-1504.1, as well as provisions of the Illinois Housing Development Act (“Act”) 20 ILCS 3805/7.30, 7.31. Specifically, Plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of § 15- 1504 which required a $50 “add on” filing fee for the filing of a mortgage foreclosure complaints. Id . at *1. Sections 7.30 and 7.31 of the Act created programs funded by the $50 fee created in § 15-1504.1 in response to the mortgage foreclosure crisis of 2010. Plaintiffs alleged that the statutes violated the equal protection, due process, and uniformity clauses of the Illinois Constitution of 1970. Ill. Const. 1970, art I, § 2, art. IX, § 2. Plaintiffs also alleged that the statutes violated the constitutional right to obtain justice freely, i.e ., the "free access" clause of the Illinois Constitution. Id . at *3. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief and a return of all filing fees paid pursuant to § 15-1504.1. Defendants maintained that the statutes were constitutional and also argued that the voluntary payment doctrine precluded Plaintiffs’ claims because they did not pay the filing fee “under protest.” Id . at *6. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, and the trial court granted partial summary judgment in favor of Plaintiffs. The trial court determined that Plaintiffs paid the fees under duress and that, therefore, the voluntary payment doctrine did not apply. The trial court further found that the statutes at issue were facially unconstitutional because the challenged provisions violated the free access, equal protection, due process, and uniformity clauses of the Illinois Constitution. The trial court entered a permanent injunction enjoining the Illinois circuit courts from enforcing and following the statutes, and stayed enforcement of the injunction to provide the Illinois Supreme Court an opportunity to review the case. On a further consolidated appeal, the Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed the judgments of the trial court. First, the Supreme