In a case that will set national precedent in similar litigation, Yetter Coleman LLP has defeated a putative class action against Houston Methodist Hospital on summary judgment over its use of Meta Pixel website code.
A Sept. 22 decision from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted Yetter Coleman’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice. The dismissal in Sweat v. Houston Methodist occurred before the court decided whether to grant class certification.
Meta Pixel is a piece of JavaScript code used on websites to track the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns. Hospitals across the country saw a wave of class actions over the code after a 2022 news article suggested that it could potentially send sensitive health information on websites to Facebook. The lawsuit against Houston Methodist alleged its use of Meta Pixel violated the federal Wiretap Act. This is the first of those putative class actions to be resolved on summary judgment before a decision on class certification, which will likely set a key precedent for Meta Pixel litigation against hospitals.
After an expedited discovery that included 10 depositions in one month, the Southern District of Texas found that Houston Methodist employees believed Meta Pixel code was safe for hospitals to use and that it only provided aggregated and anonymized data. The court also noted that Houston Methodist only used Meta Pixel for improving marketing and public health outreach. The ruling affirms Houston Methodist’s commitment to patient privacy and clarifies that the hospital never engaged in improper conduct.
The Yetter Coleman team representing Houston Methodist in this case included partners Paul Yetter, Tracy N. LeRoy and Mollie Bracewell, senior counsel Katie Tipper-McWhorter and Jane Ray, and associate Jared LeBrun.
The Texas Lawbook covered the win in its weekly Litigation Roundup and Law.com in its Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout-Outs.