Court Rejects Trespass to Chattels Claim Over Placing Cookies–Doe v. Tenet

June 11, 2025 · by · in Privacy/Security, Trespass to Chattels

This is a Meta pixels case. The pixel setup includes the placement of cookies on users’ devices. The plaintiffs argued that the cookie placement trespassed their devices. The court disagrees but gives plaintiffs leave to amend.

(As usual, there is a lot more going on in this case beyond trespass to chattels, but I’m focusing this blog post just on that claim).

The court summarizes the plaintiffs’ trespass allegations:

Defendants “intentionally used, intermeddled, interfered with, and dispossessed [them] of their computing devices without their consent by placing the fbp, ga, and gid cookies on [their] computing devices,” and that as a result, their devices “are useless for exchanging private communications with Tenet [ ], which substantially impairs the condition, quality, and value of [their] computing devices.”

The court says these allegations aren’t good enough in light of Hamidi.

First, the court says the mere placement of cookies, without more, doesn’t show any actual injury to the plaintiffs. The court distinguishes the In re Meta Healthcare Pixels case, where the plaintiffs adequately alleged that the cookies had slowed down their device. (That is almost certainly not a credible statement, but courts have a limited ability to test the evidence on a motion to dismiss). In contrast, “here Plaintiffs do not allege that the placement of cookies led to a measurable decrease in storage, memory, or any other impairment to their computing devices’ functioning.” Assuming the plaintiffs can satisfy Rule 11, it should be easy enough for them to fix these allegations.

Second, the plaintiffs provided no evidence of “dispossession.” Indeed, they cannot: the meaning of dispossession is (per the Cambridge Dictionary) “the fact of having property, especially buildings or land, taken away from you.” No one took away the plaintiffs’ phones from them. However, even if the court strikes the dispossession allegation, the plaintiffs should be able to proceed with arguments tha tthe cookies “intermeddle” or “interfere” with the device.

Third, the plaintiffs claimed the cookies interfered with their private communications. But this concern doesn’t reflect a technical limitation on the device’s functioning due to the cookies. Instead, it’s the users’ behaviorial countermove to the cookies’ presence. Per Hamidi, users’ behavioral changes aren’t recognizable harms, just like the California Supreme Court disregarded the changes in Intel employees’ behavior in response to Hamidi’s spam. The court cites Doe I v. Google.

While it’s nice to see the court push back on plaintiffs’ overclaims of trespass to chattels, we’ll have to see if the plaintiffs can revive the claim by copying the pleading approaches from the Meta Healthcare Pixels case. If it’s that easy for the plaintiffs to correct their complaint, this ruling becomes inconsequential. Instead, my hope is that courts will keep pushing back on the Meta Healthcare Pixels ruling, which made a breathtakingly broad interpretation of the interplay between cookies and trespass to chattels.

Case Citation: Doe v. Tenet Healthcare Corp., 2025 WL 1635956 (E.D. Cal. June 9, 2025)

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