Williams v. Jackson Park SLF, LLC
| Decision Date | 24 September 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 19-CV-8198 |
| Parties | CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. JACKSON PARK SLF, LLC Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiff brings this proposed class action for alleged violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. Defendant now moves to dismiss the complaint on preemption grounds with prejudice. Defendant's motion to dismiss [14] is granted, but the complaint is dismissed without prejudice.
Christopher Williams ("Williams") worked as a nurse technician for Defendant Jackson Park SLF, LLC ("Jackson Park")1 from October 2016 to August 11, 2019. (First Amended Class Action Complaint ("FAC"), Dkt. 2, Attachment 1 ¶ 42). Jackson Park is in the business of rehabilitation and supportive living for adults with physical disabilities. FAC ¶ 1. Jackson Park requires employees to scan their handprints to clock in and out of work. Id. ¶ 3. Handprint scans are considered "biometric identifiers" under the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act ("BIPA"), 740 Ill. Comp. Stat.14/10. Williams alleges that Jackson Park violated BIPA by (1) failing to institute, maintain, and adhere to a publicly-available retention schedule or guidelines for permanently destroying biometric identifiers (see 740 ILCS § 14/15 (a)); (2) failing to obtain informed written consent and release before obtaining employees' biometric identifiers (id. § 15 (b)); and (3) failing to obtain consent before disclosing biometric identifiers and information (id. § 15 (d)). FAC ¶¶ 65-92.
Williams seeks to represent a class of "[a]ll individuals working for Defendants in the State of Illinois who had their handprints collected, captured, received, otherwise obtained, maintained, stored or disclosed by Defendants during the applicable statutory period." Id. ¶ 55.
According to Williams, he was a member of a union during most of his employment with Jackson Park. . He states that he was not a union member for about the first 30 days of his employment. Id. ¶4.2 Once he joined the union he was a member of the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union Local 1546 ("Local 1546") which is the "sole collective agent for Local 1546's members," pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between Local 1546 and Jackson Park. (Pokorny Decl.; Dkt. 15-1 at ¶8). Local 1546 and Jackson Park were signatories to a CBA effective June 1, 2014 to May 31, 2017 and then a CBA effective January 1, 2017 to May 31, 2020. (Id.) These CBAs contained a management rights clause in § 3.1. (Id., Ex. C at 53 and Ex. D at 76). TheCBAs also included a grievance procedure for disputes about the application or interpretation of the CBAs. The grievance procedure ends in arbitration pursuant to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. (Id., Ex. C at 64-65 and Ex. D at 87-88 (Article XVIII)).
Although Jackson Park moves to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12 without citing a specific part of that rule, it argues that "[a] dismissal based on labor law preemption should be labeled as a judgment on the pleadings or a dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction." (Dkt. 15 at 5). The Court construes the motion as a Rule 12(b)(1) motion for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. See Miller v. Southwest Airlines Co., 926 F.3d 898, 901 (7th Cir. 2019) (); see also Peatry v. Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc., 2020 WL 919202 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 26, 2020) ().
"A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) tests the jurisdictional sufficiency of the complaint, accepting as true all well-pleaded factual allegations and drawing reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiffs." Bultasa Buddhist Temple of Chi. v. Nielsen, 878 F.3d 570, 573 (7th Cir. 2017). However, "[w]here, as here, plaintiff's complaint is facially sufficient but external facts call the court's jurisdiction into question, we 'may properly look beyond the jurisdictional allegations of the complaint and view whatever evidence has been submitted on the issue to determine whetherin fact subject matter jurisdiction exists.'" Taylor v. McCament, 875 F.3d 849, 853 (7th Cir. 2017) (citations omitted); see also Apex Digital, Inc. v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 572 F.3d 440, 443-44 (7th Cir. 2009).
Jackson Park argues that because Williams is a union member, the issue in dispute here is preempted under Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act ("LMRA"), 29 U.S.C. § 185. Based on Miller v. Southwest Airlines Co., this Court agrees.
Section 301 of the LMRA preempts a state law claim if resolution of the claim "requires the interpretation of a collective-bargaining agreement." Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef, 486 U.S. 399, 413, 108 S. Ct. 1877, 1884 (1988). Section 301 preempts "claims founded directly on rights created by collective-bargaining agreements, and also claims 'substantially dependent on analysis of a collective-bargaining agreement.'" Gray v. Univ. of Chicago Med. Ctr., Inc., 2020 WL 1445608, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 25, 2020) (quoting Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 394 (1987)). See Miller, 926 F.3d at 904; Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 U.S. 202, 220 (1985) and Healy v. Metro. Piet & Exposition Auth., 804 F.3d 836 (7th Cir. 2015)).
Like here, in Miller, 926 F.3d 898, union members used their fingerprints (biometric identifiers pursuant to 740 ILCS 14/10) to clock in and out of work. There plaintiffs alleged that defendants "implemented these [timekeeping] systems without their consent, failed to publish protocols, and use third-party vendors to implementthe systems." Id. at 901.3 These mirror the claims here. (FAC at ¶¶ 65-92, alleging violations of BIPA § 15(a)), 15(b), 15(d)). In finding preemption, the Seventh Circuit held that "how workers clock in and out is a proper subject of negotiation between unions and employers." 926 F.3d at 903.
Williams contends that his claim should not be preempted because the union cannot waive his statutory privacy rights under BIPA. Miller addressed this argument directly when it held that BIPA's text allows authorized agents, such as unions, to act on members' privacy rights. Miller, 926 F.3d at 904 (). See also Peatry, 2020 WL 919202 at *4 (). See also Frisby v. Sky Chefs, Inc., 2020 WL 4437805, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 3, 2020) (); Darty v. Columbia Rehab. & Nursing Ctr., LLC, 2020 WL 3447779, at *2 (N.D. Ill. June 24, 2020) ().4
Although Williams argues against preemption because the CBA here did not anticipate the use of biometric information, neither the CBA in the present case or the Miller case mentioned biometric information. But the Miller Court also addressed this question when it determined that whether the CBA management rights clause gave rise to consent regarding biometric data is a question for an adjustment board.5 Miller, 926 F.3d at 903.
Williams attempts to avoid preemption by relying on cases that are easily distinguishable. In Fowler v. Ill. Sports Facilities Auth., 338 F. Supp. 3d 822 (N.D. Ill. 2018), the court held that plaintiff's negligence claims—"true state law claims" — were not preempted by § 301 after finding defendant's reading of the parties' collectively bargained agreement was not plausible. Id. at 827-28. And Rogers v. BNSF Ry. Co., 2019 WL 5635180 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 31, 2019), also relied on by Williams, did not involve the LMRA. See Gray, 2020 WL 1445608, at *5 (distinguishing Rogers). Finally, the Illinois trial court opinions cited by Williams are not binding on thisCourt, do not permit this Court to disregard Seventh Circuit precedent, and to the extent they contradict decisions by courts in this Circuit since Miller, this Court declines to follow them.
Finally, Williams attempts to distinguish Miller because the Miller plaintiffs sought monetary damages for "compensation injuries", and he does not seek such damages. Williams fails to explain how this distinguishes the Miller ruling in a meaningful way. The Peatry court rejected this same argument. 2020 WL 919202 at *4. Moreover, the district judge in Miller v. Sw. Airlines Co. (prior to the appeal) denied plaintiffs' Rule 59(e) motion and request to amend the complaint, concluding that the dispute would still need to be submitted to mandatory arbitration even without the compensation injury allegations. 2018 WL 5249230, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 22, 2018).
Williams argues that if his claim is preempted, he will not have a viable forum in which to seek relief. He asserts that the CBA's seven-day window to raise claims may preclude him from pursuing administrative remedies at all. Dkt. 25 at 8.6 A similar argument was rejected in Gray, 2020 WL 1445608. This Court agrees with Gray's analysis:
The...
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