On February 11, 2026, Judge Robert Rohm of the Circuit Court of DuPage County, Illinois, issued a decision in Dawkins v. The Lifetime Value Co1 granting a motion to dismiss a putative class action complaint alleging a violation of the Illinois Right of Publicity Act (IRPA).2 This decision is notable as it held that if an information provider charges even a nominal amount for a trial subscription, (in this case $1), it cannot be held liable for violating the IRPA.
Over the past several years, the plaintiff class action bar has been filing right of publicity act class actions in several states against information providers that offer free or trial subscriptions to their platform, which allow trial users to access data containing an individual’s identity. Right of publicity act statutes provide that it is a violation for a defendant to hold out an individual’s identity for a commercial purpose without their consent. A traditional right of publicity act claim involves a celebrity claiming a third-party is using the celebrity’s name or image to sell its products or services.
The plaintiff class action bar has been seeking to expand the scope of liability under right of publicity acts to include the mere use or display of an individual’s name or identity by an information provider in a trial subscription. For example, a company offers a free trial subscription to its data base of contact information, and a trial user does a search that pulls up the contact information of John Smith. The plaintiff class action bar is asserting that the information provider is using John Smith’s name for a commercial purpose, namely, to sell subscriptions to its platform, in violation of the right of publicity acts. Right of publicity act class actions have been filed against multiple information providers under this theory including Apollo, Datanynze, RocketReach, PeopleConnect, ZoomInfo, Instant Checkmate, Whitepages, Yardi Systems, Seamless Contacts, and Lifetime Value.
Illinois, California, Alabama, Indiana, and Nevada are the current hot beds for right of publicity act class action filings. Right of publicity acts typically provide for statutory damages for violations. For example, the Illinois act allows for statutory damages of $1,000 per violation.3 The availability of statutory damages makes right of publicity act claims attractive to the plaintiff class action bar. There have been multiple six and seven figure settlements including the following:
The elements of a right of publicity act claim vary slightly from state to state. To state a claim under IRPA, a plaintiff must allege: (1) an appropriation of the plaintiff's identity, (2) without the plaintiff's written consent, and (3) for the defendant's commercial purpose.4 IRPA defines “commercial purpose” disjunctively as “the public use or holding out of an individual's identity: (i) on or in connection with the offering for sale or sale of a product, merchandise, goods, or services; (ii) for purposes of advertising or promoting products, merchandise, goods, or services; or (iii) for the purpose of fundraising.”5
Recently, two individuals filed an IRPA class action in the Circuit Court of DuPage County, Illinois against The Lifetime Value Co. (LTV).6 LTV operates an internet platform called PeopleSmart. PeopleSmart allows subscribers to search for contact information regarding individuals such as their address, phone number, email address, and employer. The information contained in PeopleSmart’s platform is publicly available information. PeopleSmart sells monthly subscriptions to its platform for $29.00. It also offers a seven-day trial membership for $1. (In contrast other information providers that have been hit with right of publicity act class action complaints offered free trial subscriptions to their platforms). Plaintiffs alleged that their information and that of the putative class members was displayed by PeopleSmart to trial users without their consent as “teasers” to sell monthly subscriptions to its platform. Therefore, the plaintiffs alleged PeopleSmart violated IRPA and it was liable for the statutory damages allowed under IRPA.
LTV filed a motion to dismiss the complaint arguing among other things that its $1 seven-day trial subscription was a paid subscription and therefore LTV was not holding out the plaintiffs’ identities for a commercial purpose in violation of IRPA as the trial subscription it offered was a paid subscription. LTV argued in its motion to dismiss that: “Plaintiffs do not allege that their identities were used in any form of “advertising,” instead they allege nothing more than the lawful sale of reports (products) collecting publicly available information through the PeopleSmart website.”
In the hearing on the motion to dismiss held on February 11, 2026, Judge Robert Rohm indicated that while he agreed with the plaintiffs that PeopleSmart was offering the trial subscription for the purpose of marketing its monthly subscription, he held that because PeopleSmart charged a fee for its trial subscription, it was not violating IRPA. Judge Rohm stated that he searched for over 40 hours looking for a case that held a paid trial subscription violated a right of publicity act and he could not find one. He dismissed the complaint with prejudice on February 11, 2026, holding that because the trial subscription was not free, there was no IRPA violation. Judge Rohm did comment that if the plaintiff’s counsel could produce a decision holding that a paid trial subscription violated IRPA, he might be willing to reconsider his ruling.
[1] Steven Dawkins and Michael Franklin v. The Lifetime Value Co., No. 2025LA001084 (DuPage County, IL).
[2] 765 ILCS § 1075/1 et seq. (2026).
[3] 765 ILCS § 1075/40 (2026).
[4] 765 ILCS §1075/30(a) (2026).
[5] Id.
[6] Steven Dawkins and Michael Franklin v. The Lifetime Value Co., No. 2025LA001084 (DuPage County, IL).
