Facebook Seeks Dismissal of Location Data Class Action

Facebook recently encouraged a federal court to dismiss class action claims alleging the company collects and stores user location data.

The tech giant claims the Facebook location data class action lawsuit should be dismissed because the plaintiffs fail to include specifics in their allegations.

According to Facebook, the class action lacks specific allegations about how the company “actually inferred plaintiffs’ locations with any precision.”

Facebook also argues that the plaintiffs failed to correct the “fundamental defects” pointed out by U.S. District Court Judge James Donato. The judge previously ordered the plaintiffs to amend their complaints after he determined that the Facebook class action lawsuit lacked sufficient evidence.

“As currently alleged, the complaint does not provide enough facts to undertake the context-specific inquiry into the plausibility of the privacy expectation or the offensiveness of the intrusion,” Judge Donato wrote at the time.

In their motion to dismiss, Facebook argues that the plaintiffs have failed to resolve these deficiencies. For example, Facebook states that the amended complaint failed to specify which location data is collected by the social media giant, even after users have turned their location settings off.

Additionally, although the amended complaint added three new plaintiffs, Facebook argues the new details still have not showed how user location data was generally collected by the company.

“At bottom, plaintiffs’ lawsuit is based on the notion that Facebook supposedly misrepresented its practices to users, but, importantly, plaintiffs elected not to bring a fraud claim in the [amended complaint],” Facebook argues in the dismissal motion.

“There is only one conclusion to be drawn from that fact: plaintiffs knew they could not state such a claim.”

In addition to claiming that the Facebook users failed to include specifics in their amended complaint, Facebook argues their disclosure policies sufficiently inform users about what type of data is collected and when any data is collected.

Plaintiffs Brett Heeger, Zachary Henderson, Caleb Rappaport and Elizabeth Pomiak allege that the disclosures are not sufficient.

“Plaintiffs studiously omit Facebook’s express statements, contained in the very same disclosures that purportedly contain misrepresentations, that Facebook would continue to collect certain location-related information when the settings were off,” Facebook’s dismissal motion insists.

“And, in any case, as this court previously held, even if the disclosures were arguably deceptive (they are not), that would not be sufficient to save the otherwise inadequate privacy claims.”

As the final nail in the proverbial coffin, Facebook argues that the plaintiffs’ unjust enrichment claims – which were added in the amended complaint – cannot be allowed to move forward.

According to Facebook, the unjust enrichment claim “fails because there is a binding contract between the parties” and because the Facebook users failed to sufficiently show that they are owed restitution due to any unfair action.

Are you a Facebook user? Do you think the claims should be allowed to continue? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

The plaintiffs are represented by Sabita J. Soneji and Katherine M. Aizpuru of Tycko & Zavareei LLP and Norman E. Siegel, Barrett J. Vahle and Jillian R. Dent of Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP.

The Facebook Location Data Class Action Lawsuit is Heeger v. Facebook Inc., Case No. 3:18-cv-06399, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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