UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

BRIAN R. VAUGHAN and JASON )

DARNELL, individually and on behalf of )

all others similarly situated, )

)

Plaintiffs, )

) Case No. 20-cv-04241

v. )

)

BIOMAT USA, INC., TALECRIS ) Judge Marvin E. Aspen

PLASMA RESOURCES, INC., and )

INTERSTATE BLOOD BANK, INC., )

)

Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

MARVIN E. ASPEN, District Judge:

This putative class action concerns the alleged unlawful collection and retention of 

biometric data. Plaintiffs Brian R. Vaughan and Jason Darnell claim that Defendants Biomat 

USA, Inc. (“Biomat”), Talecris Plasma Resources, Inc. (“Talecris”), and Interstate Blood Bank, 

Inc. (“Interstate Blood Bank”) violated Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), 

740 Ill. Comp. Stat. 14/1 et seq., when they “captured, collected, received through trade, and/or 

otherwise obtained” Plaintiffs’ biometric data without providing appropriate disclosures or 

obtaining Plaintiffs’ written consent to do so, and then failed to destroy the data as required. 

(Amended Class Action Complaint (“Am. Compl.”) (Dkt. No. 33) ¶¶ 16–18, 20, 22.)1 

Defendants have moved to dismiss the Amended Complaint under Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. (Defendants’ 

1 For ECF filings, we cite to the page number(s) set forth in the document’s ECF header unless 

citing to a particular paragraph or other page designation is more appropriate.

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Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

12(b)(6) (“Motion”) (Dkt. No. 53).) For the reasons set forth below, we grant the Motion.

BACKGROUND

We take the following facts from the Amended Class Action Complaint and accept them 

as true for the purpose of deciding Defendants’ Motion. O’Brien v. Vill. of Lincolnshire, 955 

F.3d 616, 621 (7th Cir. 2020); Phillips v. Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 714 F.3d 1017, 1019–20 

(7th Cir. 2013).

Defendants operate plasma donation centers in Illinois. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 3, 4.) Plaintiffs 

assert that they donated plasma at “one of the Defendants’ Illinois-based plasma donation centers 

within this District,” though they do not specify which center they visited or when they donated. 

(See id. ¶ 24.) “Each time that Plaintiffs donated plasma, they were required to scan their 

fingerprint using [a] biometric device.” (Id. ¶ 28.) Defendants used this information to generate 

a biometric template for Plaintiffs, which was then stored in a database and used to track 

Plaintiffs’ plasma donations. (Id. ¶¶ 25–27.) Defendants never notified Plaintiffs of the specific 

purposes or length of time for which they were collecting, storing, or using Plaintiffs’ biometric 

data. (Id. ¶ 29.) Nor did Defendants provide Plaintiffs with their biometric data retention 

policies. (Id. ¶ 30.) Further, Plaintiffs never signed a written release allowing Defendants to 

“collect, capture, store, or otherwise obtain their fingerprint print(s), handprint, hand geometry, 

or other biometrics.” (Id. ¶ 31.) As a result of Defendants’ conduct, Plaintiffs have been 

exposed to “serious and irreversible privacy risks” and have been deprived of certain information 

to which they are entitled. (Id. ¶¶ 10, 34.) 

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Vaughan sued Biomat and Talecris in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, alleging 

that they violated Sections 15(a) and (b) of BIPA. (See generally Class Action Complaint 

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(“Compl.”) (Dkt. No. 1-1).) After Biomat and Talecris removed Vaughan’s suit to this Court 

based on the Class Action Fairness Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d), Vaughan amended the complaint to 

add Darnell as a plaintiff and Interstate Blood Bank as a defendant. (See Dkt. No. 1 ¶ 8; Dkt. 

No. 31 ¶ 3; Am. Compl.) In the Amended Complaint, Vaughan and Darnell seek to represent 

themselves and “[a]ll persons who were enrolled in the biometric system used by Defendants in 

Illinois for plasma donors while donating plasma to Defendants from five years preceding the 

filing of this action to the date a class notice is mailed in this action.” (Am. Compl. ¶ 66.) They 

seek liquidated damages for negligent and reckless violations of BIPA, attorneys’ fees and costs, 

and injunctive relief. (See id. at 16–19.) 

STANDARD OF LAW

A Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss tests the sufficiency of a complaint—not the merits of 

a case. McReynolds v. Merrill Lynch & Co., 694 F.3d 873, 878 (7th Cir. 2012); Gibson v. City of 

Chicago, 910 F.2d 1510, 1520 (7th Cir. 1990). Courts considering such motions “construe the 

complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, accepting as true all well-pleaded facts 

alleged, and drawing all possible inferences in her favor.” Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 

1074, 1081 (7th Cir. 2008). A court may grant a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss only if a 

complaint lacks sufficient facts “to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft 

v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 

550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1974 (2007)). “A claim has facial plausibility when the 

plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the 

defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. A facially plausible complaint need not 

contain “detailed factual allegations,” but it must allege facts sufficient “to raise a right to relief 

above the speculative level.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S. Ct. at 1964–65. “Threadbare 

recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not 

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suffice.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S. Ct. at 1949. These requirements ensure that a defendant 

receives “fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Twombly, 

550 U.S. at 555, 127 S. Ct. at 1964 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

ANALYSIS

Defendants challenge Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint in several respects. (See 

Defendants’ Memorandum of Law in Support of Their Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs’ Amended 

Complaint (“Memo”) (Dkt. No. 54) at 5–6, 8–21.) Because we agree with Defendants that the 

Amended Complaint engages in impermissible group pleading, we dismiss the Amended 

Complaint on that basis only. 

Defendants argue that Plaintiffs failed to sufficiently plead a violation by each Defendant

because they do not plead specific facts as to each Defendant, such as “which plasma donation 

center(s) [Plaintiffs] visited, which Defendant operated the facilit(ies) where they donated, or the 

dates of any of their donations.” (Memo at 19.) Plaintiffs disagree because “[l]iability in this 

case is not predicated upon which Defendant purchased the plasma,” but rather, “which 

committed a BIPA violation,” and they have alleged that Defendants obtained, used, and stored 

their biometric data. (Opposition at 25–26.) Plaintiffs further believe discovery will show that 

Defendants operate as part of a common network and that Defendants are on notice of Plaintiffs’ 

claims. (Id.) 

“Liability is personal.” Bank of Am., N.A. v. Knight, 725 F.3d 815, 818 (7th Cir. 2013). 

When a complaint names more than one defendant, “[e]ach defendant is entitled to know what he 

or she did that is asserted to be wrongful.” Id. “Details about who did what are not merely niceto-have features of an otherwise-valid complaint; to pass muster under Rule 8 of the Federal 

Rules of Civil Procedure, a claim to relief must include such particulars.” Atkins v. Hasan, No. 

15 CV 203, 2015 WL 3862724, at *2 (N.D. Ill. June 22, 2015). 

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The Amended Complaint here does not include these particulars. It contains only two 

defendant-specific paragraphs, which provide rudimentary information about each Defendant’s

operations and where each Defendant is incorporated. (See Am. Compl. ¶ 3 (“Defendants 

Biomat and Talecris are Delaware corporations with multiple business locations in Illinois where 

they contract with people to purchase their plasma.”), ¶ 4 (“Defendant Interstate Blood Bank is a 

Tennessee corporation with multiple business locations in Illinois where it contracts with people 

to purchase their plasma. Interstate Bloo[d] Bank also operates under the name Plasma 

Biological Services, LLC (“PBS”). PBS merged into Interstate Blood Bank in 2019.”).) 

Otherwise, the Amended Complaint simply lumps Defendants together, alleging that all three of 

them performed the same actions. (See, e.g., id. ¶¶ 25–27.) Nor is it clear from the Amended 

Complaint how Defendants are related in a way that would be relevant here. Although Plaintiffs 

allege that all Defendants are “part of the Grifols network of blood plasma donation” and that 

“Grifols operates in Illinois” under Defendants’ names (id. ¶ 5), they do not allege facts 

indicating why each Defendant’s connection to Grifols is significant in this case. 

Plaintiffs are not expected to detail all aspects of their case at the pleading stage, but there 

are certain factual allegations that they should be able to make that notify each Defendant of the 

scope of its potential liability. In this case, such allegations include, but are not limited to, which 

plasma donation center(s) Plaintiffs visited and which Defendant operated the center(s) where 

Plaintiffs donated. If a Defendant was not involved in that process, Plaintiffs must allege other

facts plausibly showing that Defendant’s liability for Plaintiffs’ injuries. 

The cases cited in Plaintiffs’ Opposition do not convince us otherwise. (See Opposition 

at 25–26.) The courts in Wordlaw v. Enterprise Leasing Co. of Chicago, LLC, No. 20 CV 3200, 

2020 WL 7490414, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 21, 2020), and Cunningham v. Foresters Financial

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Services, Inc., 300 F. Supp. 3d 1004, 1016 (N.D. Ind. Jan. 9, 2018), allowed plaintiffs to pursue 

claims against multiple defendants where plaintiffs stated facts connecting defendants to the 

alleged harm but did not fully flesh out the relationships between defendants. In both cases, 

however, the plaintiffs could not reasonably be expected to provide the missing information 

without the benefit of discovery. See Wordlaw, 2020 WL 7490414, at *3; Cunningham, 300 F. 

Supp. 3d at 1016. 

In Wordlaw, the plaintiff alleged that the Enterprise car-rental facility where she worked 

used a timekeeping system that violated BIPA. 2020 WL 7490414, at *1, *3. She named two 

Enterprise entities as defendants, alleging sufficient facts to suggest that they jointly operated the 

facility. Id. However, she did not know which of the corporate entities installed and controlled 

the timekeeping system at issue. Id. at *3. The court concluded that plaintiff had pleaded 

sufficient facts to put the defendants on notice of their wrongdoing. Id. The plaintiff could 

further develop her contentions in discovery. Id.

In Cunningham, the plaintiff alleged that two corporate defendants were engaged in a 

scheme to market their insurance products. 300 F. Supp. 3d at 1009. Their co-defendants 

allegedly made autodialed and prerecorded message calls on the corporate defendants’ behalf. 

Id. at 1010. The plaintiff set forth facts suggesting that calls were made on the corporate 

defendants’ behalf but could not articulate certain information about the relationship between the 

corporate defendants and others who had been named as defendants. Id. at 1015–16. Given the 

nature of the case, the court concluded that the plaintiff “[could not] reasonably be expected to 

know such information” at the pleading stage. Id. at 1016. 

By contrast, Plaintiffs in this case failed to plead facts that they know or can reasonably 

be expected to know without the benefit of discovery. For instance, Plaintiffs should be able to 

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articulate where their biometric data was collected. They should also be able set forth the 

relationship between Biomat, Talecris, and Interstate Blood Bank in at least general terms

because Plaintiffs made the decision to sue these entities in the same suit. Because the Amended 

Complaint does not contain basic pieces of information connecting each Defendant to the claims 

at issue, it must be dismissed. See Chamberlain Grp., Inc. v. Techtronic Indus. N. Am., Inc., No. 

16 CV 06113, 2017 WL 4269005, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 26, 2017) (dismissing claims against 

corporate defendants where the “complaint tells us nothing about the individual actions of, or the 

relationships between, the various TTI defendants”). 

CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, we grant Defendants’ Motion. (Dkt. No. 53.) Plaintiffs 

shall have until May 19, 2022, to file a second amended complaint curing the deficiencies 

identified in this opinion if they can do so in compliance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

11. It is so ordered. 

 ______________________________ 

Honorable Marvin E. Aspen 

United States District Judge

Dated: April 28, 2022 

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