Foley & Lardner LLP partner Patrick McMahon shared takeaways for employers following recent rulings under Illinois’ Genetic Information Privacy Act (GIPA) in the Law360 article, “New Rulings Bolster Plaintiffs In Ill. Genetic Privacy Suits.”
McMahon, commenting on the decision in Foster v. Service Sanitation Inc., said it increases the likelihood that genetic privacy cases “head into discovery, increasing the costs of litigation for GIPA defendants and creating leverage for GIPA plaintiffs.”
He noted that the ruling may also “embolden” plaintiffs to file additional claims until GIPA defendants update their practices. To address risk, McMahon said companies should review their policies and contracts with third-party vendors completing preemployment medical or wellness examinations to strictly define how and if genetic information can be collected.
He added that if GIPA claims continue to appear, as they did earlier under the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, “there likely will be significant lobbying efforts in an attempt to limit liability.”
