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Explores the Visual Pak case and its impact on whether insurers in Illinois have an obligation to defend their insureds in BIPA litigation.

Using Remprex v. Lloyd’s London, this post analyzes the mixed rulings surrounding the question: is the defense of BIPA lawsuits covered by insurance.

Analyzes conflicting federal court decisions on policy exclusions insurers have pressed for denying coverage in BIPA litigation

Summarizes 10/21/21 South Carolina District Court decision to deny request for temporary restraining order against various municipal COVID-19 vaccine mandates

Summarizes 10/19/21 Oregon District Court decision to deny request for temporary restraining order against Oregon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate

Discusses 10/19/21 First Circuit decision to deny motion for preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of Maine’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate

Analyzes why corporate defendants in Illinois BIPA cases hope pending appellate rulings allow preemption by statute of limitations and exclusivity of work comp

Illinois' Supreme Court is set to decide if the exclusivity provisions of the Workers’ Compensation Act bar a BIPA claim

Illinois appellate court is poised to determine SOL for BIPA claims: one-year invasion of privacy, two-year statutory, or five-year general

Facebook boasts of connecting us, of connecting users from across the world and uniting them by common interests and friendships.  One of the features for connecting users is the tagging feature – a way to indicate who is appearing in a photograph.  Facebook users can tag themselves and also tag their friends.  Facebook can also participate, using facial-recognition software to suggest the names of the people appearing in a users’ photos.  See Patel v. Facebook, Inc., 932 F.3d 1264, 1268 (9th Cir. 2019) (“If Tag Suggestions is enabled, Facebook may use facial-recognition ...

The Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) establishes safeguards and procedures relating to the retention, collection, disclosure, and destruction of biometric data. 740 ILCS 14/15. Passed in October 2008, BIPA is intended to protect a person’s unique biological traits – the data encompassed in a person’s fingerprint, voice print, retinal scan, or facial geometry. Id. But in the last few years, BIPA – with its statutory penalties of $1,000 for each negligent violation and $5,000 for each intentional or reckless violation – has quickly become the bane of corporate ...

The Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) establishes safeguards and procedures relating to the retention, collection, disclosure, and destruction of biometric data. Passed in October 2008, BIPA is intended to protect a person’s unique biological traits—the data encompassed in a person’s fingerprint, voice print, retinal scan, or facial geometry. This information is the most sensitive data belonging to an individual. Unlike a PIN code or a social security number, once biometric data is compromised, “the individual has no recourse, is at [a] heightened risk for ...

The Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) establishes safeguards and procedures relating to the retention, collection, disclosure, and destruction of biometric data. Passed in October 2008, BIPA is intended to protect a person’s unique biological traits – the data encompassed in a person’s fingerprint, voice print, retinal scan, or facial geometry. This information is the most sensitive data belonging to an individual. Unlike a PIN code or a social security number, once biometric data is compromised, “the individual has no recourse, is at [a] heightened risk for ...

Every day, at sites across the United States, federal agents search container ships, trucks, cars, and aircraft entering the country. Now, increasingly, federal agents are also searching the electronic devices of the individuals entering the country – from citizens to permanent residents to tourists. See United States v. Cotterman, 709 F.3d 952, 956 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc) (“Every day more than a million people cross American borders [and] . . . they carry with them laptop computers, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Kindles, Nooks, Surfaces, tablets, Blackberries, cell ...

The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) means business. And in the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, No. 16-285 (May 21, 2018), the FAA means continued support for businesses. Interpreting the FAA, the Supreme Court held that employers and employees could agree to resolve disputes between them through one-on-one private arbitration and that arbitration agreements that disclaimed class actions or collective actions were enforceable.

Congress adopted the FAA in 1925, in “response to a perception that courts were unduly hostile to ...

Between December 2014 and January 2015, Anthem Inc., suffered a massive cyberattack on its computer systems, allowing hackers to steal the health and personal information of nearly 80 million people. In re: Anthem, Inc. Data Breach Litigation, --- F. Supp.3d ----, No. 16-MC-2210 APM, 2017 WL 680378, at *1 (D.D.C. Feb. 21, 2017). Federal employees (who received their health insurance from Anthem through the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program) were among the victims of the hacking. Id.

On May 13, 2016, the Lead Plaintiffs in the multidistrict litigation served a subpoena on the ...

The Internet, like so many things in life, is not free. The content we consume must be paid for and that usually means viewing advertisements.  But as our software and browsers become increasingly adept at blocking pop-ups and banner ads, advertisers have found themselves going native.  “Native advertising” refers to paid advertisements that are designed to look like a publisher’s own editorial content.  Native advertising is attractive to both the publishers and the advertisers.  Native ads frequently command a hefty premium over traditional ads (a boon to the publisher) and ...

Panera Bread Company is, quite obviously, in the bread business. But when Mark Boswell and others filed a class action against the company for breach of contract and fraud, the case was about a different kind of dough.

Boswell and the other named plaintiffs had served as Joint Venture General Managers for Panera, managing the daily operations of company-owned cafés. Boswell v. Panera Bread Company, No. 4:14-CV-01833 AGF, 2015 WL 6445396, at *1 (E.D. Mo. Oct. 23, 2015).  Panera entered into a standard Employment Agreement with Boswell and other Joint Venture GMs. Id. Under the ...

This year, France was treated to a quintessentially French scandal: a yogurt cartel.  On March 12, 2015, the Autorité de la Concurrence, France’s antitrust authority, announced that it was fining eleven companies more than €192 million ($214 million).  Together, these eleven companies represented close to 90% of French yogurt production.

From 2006 to 2012, representatives from companies like Yoplait, Novandie, Senagral (Senoble Group), and Lactalis Nestlé, met in private to coordinate price increases on the private-label yogurt, cheese, cream, and dairy-based dessert ...

The backbone of insurance is risk.  It is assessing risk, allocating risk, pricing risk, and insuring risk.  The insurance industry is – in a word – one of risk.

To help calculate risk, the industry has built sophisticated models and algorithms, designed to measure the likelihood of certain events and scenarios.  These predictive models quantify the odds of your car getting wrecked, your home being damaged, or – as Nationwide so morbidly reminded us – the odds that your child might die from a preventable accident.

The insurance industry, of course, insures risks beyond the home ...

Password protection may not sustain confidentiality

Passwords aren’t just for email these days. From jumping on a wi-fi network, to making a phone call, to downloading a song, everything electronic now seems under the proverbial lock and key, albeit a digital one. One recent decision from the Delaware Court of Chancery confronted this reality, holding that “merely password protecting” certain information did not constitute “reasonable efforts to protect the confidentiality of that information” and therefore, the information at issue could not be considered a trade ...