Tax Plaintiffs Oppose Meta's Consolidation Request in Pixel Litigation

Plaintiffs in two tax filing website cases against the Meta Pixel tracking tool filed a joint opposition Tuesday (docket 3:22-cv-3580) to Meta’s request to consider whether their cases should be related to and consolidated with the consolidated Meta Pixel healthcare cases (see 2301100005).

The plaintiffs in the two tax filing cases, Doe v. Meta (3:22-cv-07557) and Calderon v. Meta (5:22-cv-09149), said they share Meta’s goals of efficiency and avoiding duplicative discovery, but said the online tax filing cases “are very different” from the healthcare litigation. Where lines of cases overlap, efficiencies in discovery can be achieved through “coordination and cooperation among the parties,” they said.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick for Northern California in San Francisco is now presiding over eight consolidated Meta Pixel healthcare cases, after he reassigned C.C. v. Meta (docket 22:cv-03580) to put it under his watch, said a related case order he signed Tuesday. A motion for administrative relief to consider whether cases should be related or a sua sponte -- voluntary -- judicial referral for determining relationship was filed, and the time for filing an opposition or statement of support passed, Orrick said.

The online tax filing cases involve allegations that Meta secretly obtained income and other tax return information when class members did their taxes on websites offered by companies including H&R Block, TaxAct and Tax Slayer. They involve different websites, putative classes, disclosure of different sensitive information and laws protecting them and will involve different third-party discovery, said the opposition. Meta’s defense in the healthcare case will likely be based on different website privacy policies and laws, they said.

The tax filing and healthcare cases have in common Meta and its Pixel technology, but the Pixel, a code snippet, is customizable. Website developers choose which types of user actions to measure, then program the Pixel accordingly, said the opposition. As a result, discovery into that technology “will only partially overlap,” it said.

Meta wants to consolidate cases for discovery purposes only, but numerous courts have held that consolidation is unnecessary for coordinated discovery, said the tax filing plaintiffs, citing three cases. “This Court should reach the same conclusion,” they said, saying shared discovery interests may not extend much beyond sharing a common interest in Meta’s back-end code and declarations from a Meta employee. Plaintiffs in the tax filing and healthcare cases share discovery interests but consolidation isn’t a prerequisite in pursuing those interests, they said.

Denial of consolidation won’t be prejudicial to Meta, they said. Risk of duplicative depositions can be avoided through coordinated deposition scheduling and providing enough time for plaintiffs from both lines of cases to examine witnesses on matters unique to their cases, they said. Onsite code reviews by plaintiffs’ experts can be done on the same day, they said.