Dec. 14 Zoom Hearing Set on Picking Lead Counsel for Meta Pixel Suits

U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco scheduled a Zoom hearing for Dec. 14 at 2 p.m. PST on a Nov. 7 motion to appoint the Beasley Allen law firm as interim lead counsel for plaintiffs in the June 17 privacy class action that seeks an injunction to bar Meta from intercepting or disseminating patient information collected through its Pixel tracking tool (see 2211150003), said a text-only entry Thursday (docket 3:22-cv-03580). The complaint alleges that when a patient communicates with a healthcare provider’s website where the Pixel tool is present, its source code causes the exact content of the patient’s communication with the healthcare provider to be redirected to Facebook in a fashion that identifies the user as a patient. The claims against co-defendants UCSF Medical Center and Dignity Health Medical Foundation (DHMF) would be severed from those against Meta and tried as separate cases if U.S. District Judge William Orrick grants an unopposed joint motion to do so. UCSF and DHMF “have concerns about defending themselves as part of a consolidated action with potentially five or more other cases against Meta,” said the Wednesday motion, requesting a Dec. 21 hearing to address it. “The other consolidated cases against Meta involve patients of other healthcare providers’ websites besides UCSF or DHMF.”