Collins v. Village of Palatine

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In 2007, a Palatine police officer issued Collins a parking ticket, placing the bright yellow ticket under his car’s wiper blades. The ticket listed his name, address, driver’s license number, date of birth, sex, height, and weight. Collins claims that the display of his personal information violated the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), 18 U.S.C. 2721. In 2016, he sued the village on behalf of himself and a proposed class. The DPPA’s statute of limitations is four years but a purported class action filed in 2010 (Senne’s case) tolled the statute for everyone in the proposed class. In 2010, before Senne filed a class certification motion, the district court dismissed for failure to state a claim. The Seventh Circuit reversed. The district judge again entered summary judgment and “terminated” a motion for class certification as moot. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. In November 2015, the Supreme Court denied certiorari; on the same day, Senne’s attorney, Murphy, filed a successor class action on behalf of himself and a proposed class as a placeholder. Murphy later filed this suit naming Collins as the class representative. The district court held that Collins’s claim was time-barred and denied the motion for class certification. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Dismissal with prejudice strips a case of its class-action character. Tolling stops immediately when a class-action suit is dismissed—with or without prejudice—before the class is certified. View "Collins v. Village of Palatine" on Justia Law