personal identification information

In an extension of the spate of litigation surrounding California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act and other laws like it, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Tyler v. Michaels Stores, Inc., Civ. No. 11-10920-WGY (D. Mass. Jan. 6, 2012), followed the California Supreme Court’s lead in ruling that ZIP codes are “personal identification information” within the meaning of Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 93, § 105(a). The court nonetheless dismissed the plaintiff’s putative class action because she failed to allege any legally cognizable harm as a result of Michaels’ collection of her ZIP code in connection with a credit card transaction. Retailers who were unhappy with the California Supreme Court’s opinion in Pineda probably will not be any more pleased with the court’s ZIP code reasoning here. But the result? You bet!

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court held that ZIP codes are “personal identification information” within the meaning of the state’s Song Beverly Credit Card Act. The court’s decision in Pineda v. Williams-Sonoma Stores, Inc., No. S178241 slip op. (Cal. Feb. 10, 2011), casts a dark cloud over the established retail practice of asking for ZIP codes when customers make brick-and-mortar purchases using a credit card and essentially reverses the Court of Appeal’s decision in Party City Corp. v. Superior Court, 169 Cal. App. 4th 497 (2008). In addition to some heated debate, the Pineda decision is likely to generate a healthy number of lawsuits against California retailers.

On December 19, 2008, in Party City Corp. v. The Superior Court of San Diego County, the California Court of Appeal in the Fourth Appellate District held that zip codes are not “personal identification information” under California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act of 1971, California Civil Code Sec. 1747.08 (the “Act.”). The Act prohibits a retailer that accepts credit cards from, among other things, “request[ing], or require[ing] as a condition to accepting the credit card as payment in full or in part for goods or services, the cardholder to provide personal identification information, which the [retailer] writes, causes to be written, or otherwise records upon the credit card transaction form or otherwise.” Id. at § 1748.08(a)(2). Under the Act, “personal identification information” is “information concerning the cardholder, other than information set forth on the credit card, and including, but not limited to, the cardholder’s address and telephone number.” Id. at § 1747.08(b). Subdivision (e) of the statute provides that “[a]ny person who violates this section shall be subject to a civil penalty not to exceed two hundred fifty dollars ($250) for the first violation and one thousand dollars ($1,000) for each subsequent violation, to be assessed and collected in a civil action brought by the person paying with a credit card, by the Attorney General, or by the district attorney or city attorney of the county or city in which the violation occurred.”