Injunction Denied in Consolidated Meta Pixel Privacy Class Action
U.S. District Judge William Orrick for Northern California in San Francisco signed an order Thursday (docket 3:22-cv-03580) denying the plaintiffs in a privacy class action their Aug. 25 motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin Meta from intercepting and disseminating their patient information via the Pixel tracking tool. The plaintiffs represent one of seven consolidated cases.
The allegations against Meta “are troubling,” said Orrick. The plaintiffs “raise potentially strong claims on the merits and their alleged injury would be irreparable if proven,” he said. But to earn an injunction, they needed to show that the law and facts clearly favor their position, not simply that they're likely to succeed, he said.
Meta’s “core defense” is that it has systems in place “to address the receipt of the information at issue” and that it would be unfairly burdensome and technologically infeasible to “take further action” to safeguard private patient information, said Orrick. “Without further factual development, it is unclear where the truth lies, and plaintiffs do not meet the high standard required for a mandatory injunction,” he said.
Orrick’s decision to deny the injunction “is based on Meta’s evidence that it is doing all it can to minimize the problems raised by plaintiffs, and the need for discovery to clarify both the scope of the problems and potential solutions for them,” he said in the order. But it appears the plaintiffs “have plausible claims that may well succeed on the merits if that hurdle is overcome, and that the injury alleged is irreparable,” he said.
Plaintiffs contend they're irreparably harmed by Meta’s “ongoing interference with their right to confidential medical care and communications,” said Orrick. “I agree that the harm itself is irreparable.” But to succeed in winning an injunction, plaintiffs needed to show “that the balance of equities tips in their favor,” he said. “I find that plaintiffs have not done so.”
Two points in Meta’s arguments against an injunction “merit caution,” said Orrick. Meta’s expert witness explained the company “designed its existing filtering mechanism to detect and filter out potentially sensitive data transmitted via the Pixel in light of the vast quantity of data that floods Meta every day,” he said. “At this point, I have no reason not to credit Meta’s assertions regarding the design of the filtration systems.”
At "this early stage of litigation," many of the facts in the case “are unknown or still developing,” said Orrick. “It is not clear to me, for instance, how many hospital systems currently use the Pixel on their patient portals. Nor do I know how successfully Meta’s filtration systems flag and block the health information at issue in this case.” Though plaintiffs described what's “potentially a serious problem,” he said, the “precise contours of this problem” remain unknown.
On a procedural note, Meta objects that the planned consolidated complaint, which will be filed at some point in the future, “moots plaintiffs’ motion” for an injunction, said Orrick. “Meta is missing the point,” he said. Though at some point a consolidated complaint will be filed and at that point, the first amended complaint will no longer be the “operative pleading,” that hasn't happened yet, he said. “None of Meta’s cases support its novel theory that a motion for a preliminary injunction based on a currently operative complaint is mooted by a currently non-existent consolidated complaint.”