The first case under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) to go before a jury, Rogers v. BNSF Railway in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, saw a major amendment nearly eight months after its September 2022 verdict. On June 30, the judge vacated the initial $228 million award, and, more significantly, allowed jury discretion to decide damages in the new trial.

While the tale of BIPA cases is long, and full of twists and turns, few chapters in this story have been as momentous as the February decision in Latrina Cothron v. White Castle System, which led to astronomical damages, up to $17 billion. The case brought the spotlight back to BIPA’s constitutionality and set the stage for a revision of the contentious statute, which ended up making damages “discretionary” rather than “mandatory.”