Appeals court tosses customer lawsuit against Best Buy

A two-year-old potential class-action lawsuit against Best Buy Co. Inc. has been tossed out by federal appeals court in San Francisco, upholding a lower-court ruling.

A 2011 Florida lawsuit by Steven Siegler had alleged that Best Buy violated privacy law when it swiped the driver's licenses of customers who were returning purchases to a store.

Information services company LexisNexis reported on its "Law360" website that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the Florida lower court that the Drivers' Privacy Protection Act doesn't apply to information supplied by a customer. The law forbids state motor vehicles employees from knowingly disclosing personal information contained in state motor vehicle records.

"We're not commenting on the ruling and will let the court documents speak for themselves," Paula Baldwin, a Best Buy spokeswoman, said Wednesday.

The lawsuit grew out of an October 2011 incident. Siegler returned a computer mouse to a Florida Best Buy store, and after a clerk swiped the magnetic strip on his driver's license, Siegler asked a manager to delete the information. The lawsuit said that Best Buy refused on the grounds that its return policy warned that driver's license information might be collected. Siegler's lawsuit maintained that the warning was printed on the back of his sales receipt, which he received only after buying the product.