Three different cases were simultaneously decided by the Seventh Circuit: Clay v. Union Pacific Railroad Company, No. 25-2185 (April 1, 2026) N.D. Ill., Eastern Div., Gregg v. Central Transport, LLC, No. 25-2762 (April 1, 2026) N.D. Ill., Eastern Div. and Willis v. Universal Intermodal Services, Inc., No. 25-2761 (April 1, 2026) N.D. Ill.. Here the Seventh Circuit considered whether a legislative amendment to the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which confirmed that damages should be evaluated on a per-person basis, applied retroactively to cases pending when it was enacted.
The Illinois legislature amended the Biometric Information Privacy Act in response to a Supreme Court of Illinois decision, in which the court expressed concern that the old version of the BIPA might permit “annihilative liability” for businesses regulated by the Act. Cothron v. White Castle Sys., Inc., 216 N.E.3d 918, 928 (Ill. 2023). The amendment limited available damages by stating that any entity that collects biometric information “in more than one instance … from the same person using the same method of collection in violation of subsection (b) of Section 15 has committed a single violation of subsection (b) of Section 15 for which the aggrieved person is entitled to, at most, one recovery under this Section.” Before this amendment, each “act” was a separate violation with damages up to $5,000 per violation. The question presented on appeal from two different District Court judges was whether this amendment should apply retroactively to cases pending when it was enacted.
The amendment was silent on whether it was to apply retroactively. The Seventh Circuit noted that Illinois law determined that remedial changes were procedural and not substantive, meaning that they applied retroactively. Thus, the Court held that the amendment applied retroactively because it impacted only the statutory damages available to plaintiffs and was a remedial change that did not change the law’s substantive standards of liability.