Class Actions Follow California Supreme Court's Decision in ZIP Code Collection Case

California courts have been inundated with consumer class actions filed after a February California Supreme Court decision which held that the state's Song-Beverly credit card statute prohibits retailers from requesting a customer's ZIP code in connection with credit card transactions. Pineda v. Williams-Sonoma Stores, Inc., 51 Cal. 4th 524 (2011) has been widely criticized and was contrary to previous appellate court rulings which stated that ZIP codes were not "personal identification information" under the statute. Song-Beverly provides for a civil penalty of up to $250 for a first violation and penalties of up to $1,000 for each subsequent violation. This, along with the retroactive effect of Pineda, means that retailers in California who had engaged in this practice in the last year (the statute has a one-year limitation period) suddenly became attractive targets for the plaintiffs' class action bar.