Birdsall v. PNC Bank NA; Erakat v. PNC Bank, National Association
Summary
LegalClarity reports that PNC faces two proposed class actions alleging pixel trackers and session-replay/form-capture technologies on its website transmitted browsing data to third-party advertising platforms. One suit was filed in Pennsylvania invoking WESCA and was removed to federal court then remanded back to state court; a second was filed in federal court in California citing state and federal privacy statutes. Both matters were described as pending with no settlements reported as of mid-2026.
Litigation Status
Procedural Posture
Two proposed class actions against PNC: Birdsall filed Sept. 15, 2025 in Allegheny County (GD-25-009654), which was removed to federal court (2:26-cv-00078) and then remanded to state court on 2026-03-23; Erakat filed April 6, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California (2:26-cv-01364). Both matters were pending as of mid-2026.
Reported Holding
In Birdsall, the federal court granted the plaintiff's motion to remand and returned the case to the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County on March 23, 2026; both the Pennsylvania and California cases remain pending as of mid-2026.
What the Court Decided
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted Birdsall's motion to remand the removed case to state court and closed the federal docket.
What the Court Did Not Decide
The courts did not resolve class certification, the merits of the alleged interception or privacy claims, or any settlement issues; those matters remain pending.
Significance
Neutral / mixed significance. Characterizations of significance describe how the matter has generally been discussed in tracked public sources; individual holdings are often narrow, procedural, or fact-specific, and this page does not state or imply broader holdings than the sources support.
What This Page Does and Does Not Say
This page reports what our tracked public sources say about this matter — including, where identified, the procedural posture (for example, a ruling on a motion to dismiss is not a final merits decision). It does not report legal conclusions beyond those sources, does not predict outcomes, and does not constitute legal advice.
Technologies at Issue
- pixel trackers
- session replay
- keystroke/form-field capture
- persistent identifiers
Statutes Invoked
Claims Asserted
- Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act (WESCA) claim
- Invasion of privacy claim
- California Invasion of Privacy Act claim
- Federal Wiretap Act claim
What This Matter May Mean for Website Operators
Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act (WESCA) is an all-party consent statute with a private right of action. Consent standard and private enforceability are the structural features that most shape where website tracking claims are filed and how they are valued.
For operators using similar technologies, the recurring factual questions in matters like this one are when session recording begins relative to consent and whether input masking covers every field; whether advertising pixels transmit page URLs or hashed form data before a consent choice. Our scanner tests these behaviors empirically.
Because this matter is pending, anything reported here is procedural — allegations and interim rulings, not final determinations.
Detection of a similar technology on a website is an informational risk indicator, not a legal conclusion, and nothing in this section is legal advice.
Related Intelligence
Sources
About This Page
Publisher: Inspection-Ready Institute, Inc. (DBA Crandall Consulting), an independent website compliance and risk consultancy. We are not a law firm and nothing on this page is legal advice.
How this content is produced: Facts are extracted from publicly available sources — court and government materials, recognized legal press, professional analysis, and industry reports — by our litigation intelligence engine, stored with full source provenance, and rendered from the database. Risk guidelines are computed by a deterministic formula, never by an AI model directly. See the full methodology.
Limitations: Counts labeled "Tracked" reflect matters identified in our source set and are not official court statistics. We report what courts decided and did not decide; we do not predict outcomes.
Corrections: If you believe anything on this page is inaccurate, contact us via the contact page and we will review the underlying sources promptly.
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