Johns v. Paycor, Inc., 3:20-cv-00264

Plaintiffs, former employees of Club Fitness, sued Paycor, Inc. for alleged violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) due to the use of biometric time clocks collecting fingerprints.
Plaintiffs sought certification of a class including all Illinois workers whose biometric data was collected by Paycor.
Paycor moved to dismiss and later requested a stay of proceedings, which the court originally granted due to overlapping appellate issues.
After resolution of relevant appeals, Paycor sought to keep the stay in place under the Colorado River abstention doctrine, citing parallel state court proceedings (Bolds and Ragsdale cases in Cook County).
Plaintiffs argued the state court cases involved different technology and would not resolve the claims in the federal case.
The federal court was tasked with determining whether to continue the stay or lift it and proceed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Are the federal and state actions parallel for	State cases do not involve the same tech/class; will not	State actions address same BIPA claims, same or broader	Actions are not parallel; different technology, class, and
Colorado River abstention?	resolve federal claims	class; state will dispose of federal claims	facts mean state case will not resolve all federal claims
Should the Court continue the stay under	No exceptional basis for abstention; Court should exercise	State court more advanced; avoiding piecemeal litigation;	No exceptional circumstances exist; federal court must
Colorado River?	jurisdiction	state law applies, forum is efficient	exercise jurisdiction
Is there risk of piecemeal litigation?	No, because cases address distinct technology/classes	Yes, because claims and putative classes overlap	No, as the classes and facts differ between the actions
Will state proceedings adequately protect	No, as Plaintiffs/claims in state case are distinct	Yes, because state law is at issue and parties overlap	No, state cases exclude Plaintiffs' claims now at issue

Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800 (1976) (sets forth the abstention doctrine permitting federal courts to defer to parallel state proceedings in exceptional circumstances)
Moses H. Cone Mem’l Hosp. v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 U.S. 1 (1983) (defines the high threshold for Colorado River abstention)
Baek v. Clausen, 886 F.3d 652 (7th Cir. 2018) (outlines factors for determining parallelism under the Colorado River doctrine)
Freed v. J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., 756 F.3d 1013 (7th Cir. 2014) (clarifies the requirements for abstention and parallel proceedings)
Huon v. Johnson & Bell, Ltd., 657 F.3d 641 (7th Cir. 2011) (reiterates federal courts’ near-unflagging obligation to exercise jurisdiction)