Wednesday, June 2, 2021
On May 20, 2021, the Supreme Court of Illinois upheld the state appellate decision finding that that West Bend Mutual Insurance Company must defend its insured, a tanning salon, against a class-action lawsuit claiming violation of the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) under two business owners’ liability policies.
The plaintiff in the class action lawsuit purchased a membership from the tanning salon. As part of the use of the salon’s services, the plaintiff was required to provide the salon with her fingerprints for use in the salon’s client registration system. The tanning salon then provided that information to its third-party vendor for hosting. Specifically, the plaintiff alleged:
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently upheld a lower court’s decision in
Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, Inc., 994 F.3d 1341 (11th. Cir. 2021). They affirmed that a debt collector’s communication of a consumer’s personal information to a third-party print vendor violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act’s prohibition on third-party communications in connection with debt collection under 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(b).
Hunstein will likely require major operational changes for many loan servicers. At a minimum, loan servicers who qualify as a “debt collector” under the FDCPA should rethink how to utilize third-party vendors for such basic operations as printing and higher functions such as loss mitigation. Although it is theoretically possible to continue using such vendors without communicating the personal information of the consumer, the efficiencies of using s
In Cunningham v. Vivint, Tenth circuit decides it would not enforce a clause where the Plaintiff waived the right to prosecute any lawsuit under the telephone consumer protection act TCPA, leaving a jury to decide if the plaintiff could be banned from filing TCPA lawsuits
The deluge of lawsuits brought under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), 740 ILCS 14 et seq. over the past several years has presented a challenge to companies.