Recently, the Supreme Court in the state of Illinois has allowed a lawsuit to go forward
against Six Flags for allegedly violating state biometric laws by collecting the fingerprints
of people who come into their parks.
Joining me now to talk about this issue is Scott Hardy from topclassactions.com.
Scott, thank you for being with me today.
Thanks for having me Farron, appreciate it.
So this Six Flags, they, they've clearly, according to this lawsuit, violated the state
biometrics law, state Supreme Court up in Illinois says, yes, this case is going to
proceed.
Tell us exactly, like what, what's the issue here?
What has Six Flags been doing collecting our fingerprints?
Well, it's interesting because in this lawsuit you have Six Flags who are saying, listen,
you know, yes, we're, we're collecting fingerprints were doing it for annual passes and that kind
of thing.
But, you know, the damages weren't actually, there were no financial damages to the, to
the alleged victims.
And so that's what they're really fighting on this lawsuit of saying the class action
is baseless because there are no damages because that person never suffered any financial harm.
But what's important about this ruling is that the Illinois Supreme Court actually said,
well, we have a number of other cases where even though there were no upfront financial
damages for the plaintiffs, they were still awarded a financial award because the defendant
did something allegedly illegal and there were more than 200 cases that this ruling
affects in Illinois.
And so that's what, that's what Six Flags is worried about right now is because now
they very may well, they may very well have to actually settle this class action.
And those 200 plus other lawsuits that are pending got a huge boost by the Illinois Supreme
Court in getting class actions paid out to consumers who were affected even though they
didn't actually suffer any financial damages upfront, at least even, you know, so.
So I've, I've never been to a Six Flags amusement park.
I've been to Disney World, we've gone with the family.
And, and when you go down there, you know, you get your little pass, either your wristband
or your card, you have to scan it at this little thing.
And then put your finger on this little scanner to make sure they match up, that you're not
giving someone else your id card or whatever it is to get into the park.
Is that basically how Six Flags operate?
Is that how they get the fingerprints of their guests?
Exactly.
And you know they were storing them and then as you said, they're matching them to make
sure that there's no potential fraud.
And so it'll be really curious to see how this one plays out because it appears that
they were violating Illinois state law.
And so the class action itself is valid and now that the Supreme Court has said not only
is, did you guys violate the law, now we actually can look at damages that were potential damages
that could be awarded to the plaintiffs in this.
Now we should see this one actually settled pretty quickly because once you go past the
Supreme Court, you're pretty much stuck.
What's interesting to me though is the fact that Six Flags comes out and says, okay, yeah,
we broke the law, but really did anybody get harmed by this?
I mean, come on.
You know, what's a little law breaking between friends when nobody gets hurt?
I'm sorry, just not really the best defense here, but to me, and I know it's going to
be dependent upon state law whether or not they have any kind of biometrics laws on the
books, but this seems like this could end up being something that might end up spreading
to other states assuming they have those same kinds of laws in place.
And I know we have to take it one step at a time.
We're still dealing with Illinois, but potentially, if this is successful, again, based on state
law, is this something we could see pop up in, in other areas with other amusement parks
throughout this country?
Well, since this is a state case, it's not a federal case, we probably won't see that
bearing.
There might be some reflections in another state courts talking about it, but this will
very likely just mirror, just effect Illinois residents at this time.
But we have seen different class actions filed in the state of Illinois, in state court,
that have been nationwide settlements.
And because this crime allegedly happened in the state of Illinois, anybody who went
to that theme park, whether another Illinois residents would likely be impacted by this
class action settlement.
If you need more information.
If there is one.
If you need more information on this issue, you can follow the link in the description
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top of the issues.
Scott Hardy topclassactions.com.
Thank you very much for talking with us.
Thank you.