Plaintiffs lawyers pursuing a privacy class action lawsuit against Facebook Inc. are pointing to a recent decision by the Illinois Supreme Court to try to get their case back on course for trial.

Lawyers representing a class of Illinois Facebook users were scheduled to go to trial in July 2018 before U.S. District Judge James Donato on claims that the social media site's “tag suggestions” feature violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The state law restricts how companies in Illinois collect and store biometric identifiers such as fingerprints and facial recognition data.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in May granted Facebook's emergency request to review Donato's class certification order in the case, putting the brakes on trial.

In court papers filed with the Ninth Circuit on Thursday, plaintiffs lawyers from three firms—Edelson, Labaton Sucharow and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd—claim a recent decision from the Illinois Supreme Court “fully and decisively rejected” Facebook's position in the appeal. Facebook's lawyers at Mayer Brown have argued that plaintiffs had to show actual harm beyond a statutory violation to establish standing under BIPA.

On Jan. 25, the Illinois Supreme Court held in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp. greed that the state legislature didn't require plaintiffs to allege any harm beyond a statutory violation in order to be considered an “aggrieved party” with standing to sue under the law. The Illinois high court's decision overturned a lower appellate court decision that Donato had largely distinguished from the Facebook case in his class certification order.

Donato in his April 2018 order noted that Facebook's lawyers at Mayer Brown put great emphasis on their argument that not all class members qualified as “aggrieved” parties under BIPA. Donato, however, wrote that Facebook's lawyers “almost exclusively” relied on the December 2017 decision from the Second District Appellate Court of Illinois—a decision recently overturned by the state's high court.

A Facebook representative declined to comment.

Edelson's Rafey Balabanian wasn't immediately available for comment Thursday afternoon.