Fons v. Grocery Outlet, Inc.

Published by Crandall Consulting · Informational litigation intelligence · Last substantive update: October 12, 2026

Docket / citation: 26-cv-00964-BLF · Filed: 2026-01-30

Summary

Plaintiffs in a putative class action allege that Grocery Outlet continued third-party cookie tracking after they selected “Reject All,” asserting California privacy, CIPA, and fraud-related claims. The court granted Grocery Outlet’s motion to dismiss with leave to amend, but the excerpt ends before the court completes its substantive analysis.

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

Putative class action on a defendant’s motion to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6); dismissal granted with leave to amend.

Reported Holding

The court granted Grocery Outlet’s motion to dismiss with leave to amend. The bounded excerpt does not establish the specific grounds supporting dismissal.

What the Court Decided

The court granted the motion to dismiss and permitted amendment.

What the Court Did Not Decide

The excerpt does not disclose the completed standing analysis, any disposition of the merits arguments, or subsequent amendment or appeal activity.

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

• Third-party tracking cookies
• Cookie consent banner and Privacy Preference Center
• DoubleClick
• Google Analytics
• Website browsing and user-input tracking
• Third-party cookies
• Website browsing tracking

Third parties named or identified in tracked sources: Google LLC, Flipp Corp..

Statutes Invoked

• California Invasion of Privacy Act, California Penal Code §§ 631 and 638.51
• California Invasion of Privacy Act, Cal. Pen. Code §§ 631 and 638.51

Claims Asserted

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

• Invasion of privacy
• Intrusion upon seclusion
• CIPA wiretapping claim under California Penal Code § 631
• CIPA pen-register claim under California Penal Code § 638.51
• Common-law fraud, deceit, and/or misrepresentation
• Unjust enrichment
• CIPA § 631 wiretapping
• CIPA § 638.51 pen-register claim
• Common law fraud, deceit and/or misrepresentation

What This Matter May Mean for Website Operators

For operators using similar technologies, the recurring factual questions in matters like this one are what page URLs and query strings analytics tools share with third parties. 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

• Fons et al. v. Grocery Outlet, Inc.: Order Granting Motion to Dismiss — U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California · Tier A (Primary authority) · 2026-09-24

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.