Firlej v. Petrosian Esthetic Enters., LLC

Published by Crandall Consulting · Informational litigation intelligence · Last substantive update: September 26, 2026

Docket / citation: No. 2:26-cv-01030-MWC-AGR

Summary

A Central District of California decision (Firlej v. Petrosian Esthetic Enters., LLC) dismissed a CIPA § 631(a) claim against Google and a website operator for failure to plausibly allege that a third party 'read' communications and that any reading occurred 'in transit.' The court held that allegations of collection and real-time transmission by tracking pixels and cookies were insufficient at the pleading stage, but granted leave to amend.

Litigation Status

Status, direction, and weight describe how tracked public sources characterize this matter as of our last review — they are informational classifications, not legal assessments.

Procedural Posture

Plaintiff originally pleaded several claims including a CIPA § 631(a) claim that the court earlier dismissed with leave to amend (June 18, 2026). Plaintiff filed a First Amended Complaint adding allegations that Google 'read' and 'learned' sensitive health information. Defendants moved to dismiss and the court dismissed the § 631(a) claim again for failure to plausibly allege the required 'reading' and 'in transit' elements, but granted leave to amend.

Reported Holding

The district court held that the plaintiff's First Amended Complaint failed to plausibly allege that a third party (Google) 'read' or 'learned' the contents of communications and that any such reading occurred while the communications were 'in transit' under CIPA § 631(a); the court dismissed the § 631(a) claim but granted leave to amend.

What the Court Decided

The court found the FAC primarily alleged collection and transmission of data (via tracking pixels and cookies) and concluded those allegations, including receipt of targeted ads, were insufficiently specific to show that Google read or learned the contents of communications or that any reading occurred while communications were in transit. The § 631(a) claim was dismissed with leave to amend.

What the Court Did Not Decide

The court did not resolve the merits as to whether, in some circumstances, collection and transmission by tracking tools could satisfy the 'reading' and 'in transit' elements; it declined to find that collection/transmission alone establishes the required 'reading' while in transit at the pleading stage.

Significance

Generally viewed as defense-favorable. 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

• tracking pixels
• third-party cookies

Third parties named or identified in tracked sources: Google.

Statutes Invoked

• Cal. Penal Code § 631(a) (CIPA § 631(a)) — all-party consent · private right of action

Claims Asserted

Claims identified in tracked public sources; pleadings may include additional or amended claims.

• Cal. Penal Code § 631(a) (CIPA § 631(a))

What This Matter May Mean for Website Operators

California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) 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 whether advertising pixels transmit page URLs or hashed form data before a consent choice. Our scanner tests these behaviors empirically.

The reported outcome direction at the pleading stage reflects how tracked sources characterize the ruling; such rulings are often narrow, posture-specific, and fact-bound rather than broad statements of law.

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

• READING BETWEEN THE PIXELS: Court Dismisses CIPA Claim Over Tracking Tools — CIPAWorld · Tier C (Professional analysis) · 2026-09-02

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.