By Gerald L. Maatman, Jr., Jennifer A. Riley, and Ryan T. Garippo
Duane Morris Takeaways: On October 8, 2026, in Baker, et al. v. Seattle Children’s Hospital, No. 104590-5, 2026 WL 3023818 (Wash. Oct. 8, 2026), Justice Theodore J. Angelis of the Supreme Court of the State of Washington held that a hospital’s use of Meta Pixel’s advertising technology ( “Meta Pixel”) on its public website did not violate the Washington Privacy Act (“WPA”) because the plaintiffs’ website searches involved communications between a single individual and a website, and were not between “two or more individuals” as required by the WPA. The decision is a significant win for companies that use website advertising technologies, like Meta Pixel, but its import may be limited to claims brought under Washington state law.
Case Background
Seattle Children’s Hospital (“SCH”) operates a public website that provides general information about the hospital, including a directory of health care professionals, hours of operation for clinics, and descriptions of health conditions. The website also uses free software, called Meta Pixel, that allows websites to review visitors’ clicks, text searches, and page views. Meta Pixel also allegedly relays content of such searches to Meta Platforms, Inc., which links that information to the Facebook or Instagram account of the website visitor for targeted advertising.
In 2023, Carly Baker, Amber Shavies, and Janssen Ramos Savoie (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) filed a putative class action against SCH. Each of the Plaintiffs was a parent who alleged that they visited SCH’s public website to search for information regarding “their children’s medical conditions and for clinic operating hours, as well as visiting the patient portal, MyChart, to communicate with doctors and view their children’s electronic records and medical histories.” Id. at *2. SCH disputed that Meta Pixel was ever installed on the hospital’s MyChart patient portal and Plaintiffs “subsequently clarified that their claims targeted only the use of Pixel on SCH’s publicly available website.” Id. at *2, n.5.
SCH moved to dismiss the complaint and argued, inter alia, that Plaintiffs’ searches and queries on the website were not “private communications” as defined by the WPA. The trial court granted SCH’s motion to dismiss and dismissed the complaint with prejudice. Plaintiffs appealed and the Washington Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal on the ground that navigation of a website is not a “communication” as defined by the WPA. See Baker v. Seattle Children’s Hosp., 35 Wash. App. 2d 1018 (2025). Plaintiffs then petitioned the Washington Supreme Court for review and the petition was granted.
The Supreme Court’s Decision
In a unanimous result, Justice Angelis, writing for the majority of the Washington Supreme Court, affirmed the trial court’s dismissal but on a different basis than the Court of Appeals.
Instead of determining whether the Plaintiffs’ website activity constituted a “private communication,” the Supreme Court focused on a different part of the WPA’s text. Justice Angelis explained that it is unlawful for “any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or the state of Washington” to intercept or record any “[p]rivate communication . . . between two or more individuals.” RCW 9.73.030(1)(a).
Justice Angelis reasoned that, because only communications “between two or more individuals” are unlawful, SCH would need to be an “individual” for Plaintiffs’ theory to work. Id. But SCH is not an individual. The WPA draws a distinction between “individuals” on the one hand and entities such as “partnership[s], corporation[s], association[s], or the state of Washington,” on the other. Id. Thus, because SCH is a corporation and “only one individual was involved in each communication, the [P]laintiffs do not have a claim under the WPA.” Baker, 2026 WL 3023818, at *3.
Justice Angelis, however, took care to point out that it was immaterial that the WPA is “one of the most restrictive electronic surveillance laws ever promulgated” and that certain federal and California laws may prohibit such conduct. Id. at *4 (quotations omitted). He explained that those federal and state cases are “not instructive given the significant differences between the state and federal statutory schemes” and declined to consider such precedent. Id. (quotations omitted).
Notably, Justice González and Justice Whitener wrote separately to concur in the result but express the view that “private communications transmitted between an individual and individuals working for a corporation are protected by” WPA. Id. (González, J., concurring). Instead, Justice González would have held that these communications were not between “two or more individuals” because the “parents’ private communications were directed at a server that returned stored content and not at another individual.” Id. at *5 (González, J., concurring). Thus, to Justice González, the material distinction was not a communication with a corporation but the nature of the underlying technology itself.
But nonetheless, the Washington Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the trial court’s dismissal with prejudice.
Implications For Companies
The Baker decision is a meaningful development for Washington companies that deploy advertising technologies, such as Meta Pixel, on their public-facing websites. Although the unique language of the WPA likely makes this decision distinguishable from claims brought under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act or California Invasion of Privacy Act, this holding should knock out nearly all claims under the WPA as a matter of law.
Justice González’s concurrence, however, serves as a cautionary note. Even though the majority opinion would seem to imply that you could never apply the WPA to communications with a corporation under any circumstances, there is at least a possibility that under different facts (e.g., such as communications directed to an individual staff member) the Washington Supreme Court would reach a different result. Nonetheless, Baker is undoubtedly a tremendous win for Washington companies and corporate counsel should continue to monitor this blog to stay apprised of developments in class actions involving Meta Pixel litigation and digital privacy law.