The Washington State Supreme Court issued a decision on Thursday sustaining the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by parents who claimed Seattle Children’s Hospital shared their online browsing habits with Meta without permission. The plaintiffs contended that they utilized the hospital’s digital platform to investigate their children’s medical needs and locate providers, and that Meta subsequently leveraged this information to serve specific advertisements.
The October 8 ruling centers on a specific provision of the state privacy act, which safeguards exchanges between two or more people. The justices determined that the interactions generated by the parents’ clicks and searches on the public website constituted automated responses rather than the type of interpersonal communication required by the statute.
The court reached a unanimous conclusion. Justice Theodore J. Angelis authored the majority opinion, which was signed by seven justices. Justice Steven C. González filed a separate concurring statement, joined by Justice G. Helen Whitener. This ruling validates the earlier order issued by King County Superior Court Judge Jason Holloway. The majority did not determine if the parents’ searches were inherently private, nor did the court evaluate whether the actions violated other legal frameworks.
Amber Shavies, Carly Baker, and Janssen Ramos Savoie initiated the proposed class action in October 2023. Each plaintiff had a child receiving treatment at the facility, according to court records. The complaint alleged that the parents used the site to look up symptoms, find specialists, and verify urgent care schedules. They claimed that embedded software, identified as Meta Pixel, tracked their movements and sent the data to Meta.
The legal filings suggested that the Pixel technology could connect website activity to the visitors’ Facebook or Instagram profiles, enabling targeted advertising. Several parents reported seeing health-related ads on social media shortly after navigating the hospital’s pages. For the purpose of the dismissal review, the court treated the complaint’s factual assertions as true, focusing on whether they established a valid claim under the privacy act rather than weighing trial evidence.
The opinion noted that the website displayed a pop-up informing visitors that cookie acceptance would facilitate data storage for marketing purposes. The majority observed that this notice did not specifically mention the Pixel or detail how website data was collected and utilized.
While the plaintiffs argued that their searches constituted private communications and that the law permits corporate liability for unlawful interception, the court maintained that corporate liability does not remove the necessity for a communication between at least two individuals. The majority reasoned that each interaction occurred between a parent and an automated server owned by the hospital.
“Because only one individual was involved in each communication, the plaintiffs do not have a claim under the WPA,” Justice Angelis wrote, referring to the Washington Privacy Act.
Justice González concurred with the outcome but offered a different perspective on the reasoning. He noted that a search could disclose a parent’s specific health concerns about a child and that the plaintiffs had adequately alleged a reasonable expectation of privacy. He pointed out that the hospital’s health information notice did not list advertising as a permitted disclosure. Furthermore, he suggested that it was not possible to determine from the initial pleadings whether a standard cookie banner effectively negated the parents' privacy expectations.
The high court restricted its analysis to interactions occurring on the institution's public-facing web interface. Hospital representatives maintained that the tracking script known as Pixel was not deployed on the MyChart patient portal. The family’s legal team clarified that their argument did not rely on data collection following user authentication. Instead, they contended that merely accessing the portal’s login screen revealed the visitor’s status as a patient to Meta.
While the decision confirmed that private exchanges between patients and medical staff are shielded from this type of tracking, including voicemails directed at care teams, the justices did not settle how the rule applies to communications involving representatives of corporate entities.
This legal determination does not confirm that medical records or messages sent within the MyChart system were transmitted to Meta.
The original complaint also cited violations of Washington state’s Consumer Protection Act and Uniform Health Care Information Act, alongside other civil causes of action. The family did not contest the lower court's dismissal of these specific arguments during the appellate process, leaving the Supreme Court without the opportunity to evaluate their validity.