U.S. DISTRICT COURT DISMISSES CLASS ACTION SUIT AGAINST AMERICAN CITING ADA PREEMPTION
April 14, 2022
On March 22, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued a decision in a class action suit against American Airlines (“American”) in which American was accused of allegedly obtaining customer service hotline callers’ voiceprints without their written consent in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”).
As background, in July 2011, American began using “Interactive Voice Response” software for its customer support hotline to better respond to customers and reduce call agent volumes. The plaintiffs who sued American citing violations of the BIPA each called American’s customer service hotline in 2019 and 2020, respectively. According to their complaint, the individuals later became aware that American had allegedly obtained their voiceprints without written consent and then disclosed their information to a software vendor for cloud storage purposes without their consent. As a result, the plaintiffs filed suit asserting three claims under the Illinois BIPA, which was enacted to protect individuals’ privacy interests in their biometric information. The case was removed to federal court, where two of the claims were allowed to proceed. Once removed to federal court, American made a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ remaining two claims arguing that both claims were preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act (“ADA”) as the plaintiffs’ BIPA claims concerning the use of interactive voice response software in its customer service hotline related to the services American provides its customers. The Court granted American’s motion to dismiss as it found that no evidence was presented to dispute the idea that a customer service hotline would be considered a service under the ADA and where the state-law claims directly impacted American’s interactions with its customers and directly regulated its provision of services, it inherently interfered with the ADA’s purpose.
If you have any questions, please contact Evelyn Sahr (esahr@eckertseamans.com 202-659-6622) or Drew Derco (dderco@eckertseamans.com 202-659-6665).
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