“There’s economic information in a ZIP code.” January 19, 2015 By Jack Newsham

Preston Leonard, a Boston lawyer who has filed class-action lawsuits against companies including J. Crew and Brooks Brothers for collecting customer ZIP codes, said that retailers don’t ask for postal codes to make sure the person swiping the card actually owns it. Instead, he said, they use the information to confirm shoppers’ addresses and then bombard them with junk mail.

The plaintiff in the Michaels case said she believed that supplying her ZIP code was necessary to complete her credit card transactions at the chain. Though a lower court found that Michaels did not violate state consumer and privacy laws, the high court disagreed. http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/...HxL/story.html

US District Judge Richard G. Stearns complained that the plaintiff’s attorneys demanded a payment that was far too large — $450,000 — especially since the outcome of ZIP code cases is “virtually preordained” in Massachusetts.

“virtually preordained”? What does that really mean a new term for case law?