Cedars-Sinai Fails in Bid to Keep Privacy Suits in Federal Court

Cedars-Sinai Health System must face in California state court three lawsuits alleging it illegally shared patients’ personal information with Meta Platforms Inc. and Google LLC through the use of online tracking software on its website, a federal appeals court said Friday.

Federal jurisdiction under the “federal officer removal” statute wasn’t proper because the hospital wasn’t carrying out a basic governmental task in designing and operating the website, and wasn’t acting under congressionally delegated authority, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said.

The court affirmed the lower court’s remand orders, and joined the Third, Fifth ...