Meta Asks Court to Add 2 New Pixel Cases to Consolidated Action

Meta wants U.S. District Judge William Orrick for Northern California in San Francisco to consider adding two more cases to the seven Pixel healthcare privacy class actions already consolidated under him, said its administrative motion to relate Monday (docket 3:22-cv-03580). The cases are John Doe & Jane Doe v. Meta (docket 3:22-cv-07557) filed Dec. 1 and Katrina Calderon v. Meta (docket 5:22-cv-09149), filed Dec. 29, both in the Northern California district, said Meta. Plaintiffs in the two cases object to the motion to relate, but plaintiffs in the consolidated action don't oppose it, said the company. The consolidated action plaintiffs allege their healthcare providers installed the Pixel tool on their patient portal websites, and Meta received sensitive health information about them. The two nonconsolidated cases allege major online tax filing services, including H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer, installed the Pixel tool on their websites, giving Meta access to sensitive financial information about them. They claim this information includes tax filers’ names, email addresses, tax-filing status, refund amounts, dependents’ names and dependents’ college scholarship amounts. Though there are “meaningful differences” between the consolidated action and the two nonconsolidated cases, all “relate to the same technology,” plus they include “overlapping factual allegations and bring similar legal claims,” said Meta. “These similarities justify relation for the purposes of discovery.”