ALM has named McKool Smith's trial team as "Litigators of the Week" runners-up for securing the groundbreaking $1.4 billion settlement with Meta Platforms Inc on behalf of the State of Texas. The suit alleged that Facebook unlawfully captured the biometric identifiers of Texans for a commercial purpose without their informed consent, disclosed those identifiers to others, and failed to destroy collected identifiers within a reasonable time. Facebook’s activities included capturing biometric information billions of times from photos and videos that millions of Facebook users in Texas uploaded to the social media platform. The suit further alleged that Meta misrepresented whether and how it was using biometric identifiers. Along with the Office of the Attorney General for the State of Texas, McKool Smith and Keller Postman claimed that Facebook has, for over a decade, built an Artificial Intelligence empire while capturing the most intimate data of Texans, thereby putting their well-being, safety, and security at risk.
More details about the case can be found here.
The trial team included lead counsel Sam Baxter and Jennifer Truelove along with Principals John Briody, Kevin Burgess, Charles Fowler, Rick Halper, Eric Hansen, Lew LeClair, Radu Lelutiu, and Robert Manley; and Associates Asena Baran, Caroline Burks, Michael Catapano, Joseph Micheli, Taylor Perez, Carra Rentie, and Lauren Simenauer.