Hi CIPAWorld!
The plaintiff’s bar continues to file CIPA lawsuits over basic website tracking pixels, but federal judges are finally saying enough is enough when it comes to copy and paste complaints.
We just saw a massive win for the defense in the Central District of California where one of these pixel cases was dismissed before they ever get to discovery. In Schallert v. Laird Superfood, Inc., No. 2:25-CV-12407-SPG-PVC, 2026 WL 1707585 (C.D. Cal. June 5, 2026), the court dismissed a CIPA class action because the plaintiff forgot that you actually have to suffer a real injury to sue in federal court.
The plaintiff allegedly visited the Laird Superfood website and subsequently sued the company, claiming that embedded trackers from Meta, Google, and TikTok illegally intercepted his web interactions. He alleged violations of CIPA, the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, and common law intrusion upon seclusion.
To try and allege a concrete privacy harm, the plaintiff argued that because Laird sells wellness products, the mere act of browsing the site automatically reveals highly sensitive, private health information.
Laird argued that this particular plaintiff is a serial tester who has filed at least thirty-five nearly identical lawsuits against various companies. But the defense’s strongest argument was as to Article III standing.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett completely agreed with the defense and tossed the entire case. Relying heavily on the Ninth Circuit’s recent guidance on privacy standing, the court noted that you cannot simply parrot statutory language about “routing, addressing, and signaling information” being captured. To establish a concrete injury for a privacy violation in federal court, a plaintiff must show that the information allegedly intercepted was highly offensive, embarrassing, or otherwise deeply private. The court found it entirely implausible that simply visiting a publicly available website to look at nutrition products reveals anything close to sensitive health data. Because the plaintiff completely failed to articulate exactly what he clicked on or what specific personal information was actually transmitted to a third party, his entire theory of harm was purely hypothetical.
The case was dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. While the plaintiff was given leave to amend, this ruling is incredibly helpful for any company currently staring down a CIPA website tracking demand. You cannot let plaintiffs get away with vague, boilerplate allegations about the general capabilities of tracking pixels. Force them to state exactly what they did on your website and exactly what sensitive data was supposedly stolen. If all they did was casually browse your homepage like any other consumer, federal courts are increasingly willing to dismiss these claims.