Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs
CHICAGO - The Chicago Cubs appear to have quickly beaten class action lawsuits lobbed against them under Illinois' biometrics privacy law, which had accused them and certain security contractors of improperly scanning the faces of people visiting Wrigley Field.
On Oct. 8, attorneys representing plaintiffs in Chicago federal court filed a notice indicating they were withdrawing their legal claims against the Cubs and co-defendants Blue Star Security, of Rosemont, and Security Services Holdings, which does business as Protos Security.
Named plaintiffs in that action included Gabriel Berta and Jill Lichte.
Those plaintiffs were represented by attorneys Blake Hunter Yagman, of the New York firm of Spiro Harrison & Nelson; and Samuel Strauss, of Strauss Borrelli, of Chicago.
That was followed a week later, on Oct. 15, by a notice filed in Cook County Circuit Court dismissing similar state court claims against the Cubs and their co-defendants.
That case had been filed on behalf of named plaintiff Jason Spiese, represented by attorneys Carl V. Malmstrom, of Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz, of Chicago; and Scott Priz, of Priz Law, of Berwyn.
None of the filings included an explanation as to why the cases were suddenly withdrawn, just weeks after they were filed and garnered massive publicity.
However, in other instances in which other claims under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) have been abruptly withdrawn, other defendants have explained that they promptly provided plaintiffs with overwhelming proof that the violations alleged in the lawsuits did not occur.
The Cubs have stated from the beginning that the lawsuits were baseless and that the team intended to fight the lawsuits in court.
All of the cases against Chicago's National League ballclub sought to collect potentially millions of dollars from the Cubs on behalf of potentially hundreds of thousands of people who have attended games at Wrigley Field in the past few years.
In the lawsuits, the plaintiffs asserted the Cubs had started using facial recognition technology in 2021. They said the team now uses Protos’ proprietary facial scanning software on Wrigley Field patrons but don’t comply with BIPA’s requirements to obtain informed written consent to collect such images, nor does the team provide its policies on data retention and destruction.
The plaintiffs said Blue Star employs more than 850 active and retired police officers. Southfield Capital, a Connecticut private equity firm, owns Protos and acquired Blue Star in September 2022. The lawsuits claim the “advanced digital security procedures” allow the Cubs and their contractors to enhance security for visitors to Wrigley Field without hiring additional security workers, and help the team reduce shoplifting at stadium stores.
Under the BIPA law, plaintiffs are allowed to demand damages of $1,000 or $5,000 per alleged violation. Under Illinois law, a violation is defined as the first time a person's biometrics are scanned, allegedly without authorization.
The lawsuits did not estimate out how many people could have been included in the class action. However, damage claims could have quickly mounted into the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, when multiplying BIPA's allowed per violation damages across hundreds of thousands of spectators among millions of tickets sold by the Cubs at Wrigley Field every year.
