Judge OKs $1.8M Southwest Airlines FACTA Class Action Settlement

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On Friday, October 18, a California federal judge granted preliminary approval to a $1.8 million class action settlement between Southwest Airlines Co. and consumers who accused the company of improperly printing their full credit and debit card expiration dates on receipts.

Judge Charles R. Breyer approved the class action settlement, which will resolve two similar class action lawsuits brought by plaintiffs Jamie Lumos and Robert Miller. Both plaintiffs claimed that Southwest had willfully violated the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) by printing the entire expiration date of its customers’ debit and credit cards on electronically printed receipts.

Judge Breyer’s decision consolidated the class action lawsuits and certified a class of all individuals who used a debit or credit card to complete a purchase or transaction at a Southwest ticket counter or cargo counter that resulted in an electronically printed receipt between Oct. 17, 2007 and Jan. 25, 2013. Under the terms of the class action settlement, Class Members will receive between $25 and $200.

“The court preliminarily finds that the terms of the proposed settlement are fair, reasonable and adequate to the class,” Judge Breyer said. A hearing for final approval of the class action settlement has been scheduled for March 14, 2014.

FACTA is a subset of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and prohibits any merchant that accepts debit or credit cards from printing the expiration date or any more than the last five digits of the card number on any electronically printed receipt distributed to the card holder during a sales transaction. Congress enacted FACTA to prevent the possibility of thieves gaining access to consumers’ payment card numbers and expiration dates, protecting consumers from the potential of identity theft.

Plaintiff Lumos originally filed her class action lawsuit in February, arguing that the improper receipts were given to customers at the point of sale at airport ticket counters throughout the country. Lumos received a receipt that displayed her payment card’s full expiration date at the San Diego International Airport when she purchased a ticket in May 2012.

The class action lawsuit alleges that ticket counters in other cities that service Southwest flights such as Las Vegas, Nashville and Phoenix also provided customers with receipts that displayed the entire expiration date.

Miller filed his Southwest Airlines class action lawsuit in November 2012, claiming that he used a card to buy a ticket from a Southwest counter and observed that the card’s full expiration date was printed on the receipt, in violation of FACTA.

In its response to Lumos’ class action lawsuit, Southwest said that it did not intentionally violate FACTA, blaming the violations on a technical flaw. A willful violation of FACTA imposes statutory damages of between $100 and $1,000 per violation.

Lumos is represented by Todd D. Carpenter of Carpenter Law Group. Miller is represented by Eric A. Grover of Keller Grover LLP.

The Southwest Airlines FACTA Class Action Lawsuits are Lumos v. Southwest Airlines Co., et al., Case No. 3:13-cv-01429, and Miller v. Southwest Airlines Co., et al., Case No. 4:12-cv-05978, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE 1: Details on how how to file a claim for the Southwest FACTA Class Action Settlement can be found here.

UPDATE 2: A California federal judge has given final approval to the Southwest Airlines FACTA settlement on March 21, 2014.

UPDATE 3: Class action settlement money was distributed to Class Members in mid-April 2014.