Liu v. Four Seasons Hotel, Ltd.

Liu v. Four Seasons Hotel, Ltd.

Opinion

 [****15]   [**203]  JUSTICE HYMAN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

Justices Lavin and Pucinski concurred in the judgment and opinion.

OPINION

 [*P1]  In this interlocutory appeal, we are asked to decide one issue: whether an arbitrator or the trial court should determine whether hotel employees' claims under the Biometric Information Privacy Act (Act) (740 ILCS 14/1 et seq. (West 2016)) constitute "wage or hour violation[s]."

 [*P2]  Plaintiffs filed a class action complaint, alleging that their employer, Four Seasons Hotel, Ltd. (Four Seasons), violated the Act in its method of collecting, using, storing, and disclosing their biometric data, namely, their fingerprints for timekeeping purposes. Four Seasons filed a motion to compel arbitration, arguing that the plaintiffs signed an employment agreement that required four types of employment disputes, including "wage or hour violation" claims, be submitted to an arbitrator. The trial court denied the motion to compel [***2]  arbitration on the grounds that a claim under the Act is not one of the types of disputes the parties agreed to arbitrate.

 [*P3]  Four Seasons argues that (i) the plaintiffs' claims constitute "wage or hour violation" claims because Four Seasons used the fingerprint data to track employees' work hours, (ii) the arbitration provision was not unconscionable, (iii) the class action waiver provision does not affect the enforceability of the arbitration provision, and (iv) the question of arbitrability should be decided by an arbitrator.

 [*P4]  We affirm. Plaintiffs' claim does not involve a "wage or hour violation" subject to arbitration. Further, under the employment agreement, which limits the types of  [**204]   [****16]  disputes that must be arbitrated, arbitrability lies within the domain of the trial court.

 [*P5]  BACKGROUND

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