Appellee Cites 8th Circuit Decision as Supplemental Authority in Support of Remand
Plaintiff-appellee John Doe's counsel in the privacy appeal brought by Cedars-Sinai Health System (see 2305260047) on Thursday submitted to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as supplemental authority the 8th Circuit’s decision in John Doe v. BJC Health System…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
(docket 23-1107). Cedars-Sinai’s appeal seeks to reverse the district court’s order remanding the case to state court where it originated. BJC Health System, like Byrd’s case before the 9th Circuit, “involves a defendant’s improper removal of a case based upon the federal officer removal statute,” said counsel Rachele Byrd of Wolf Haldenstein in her letter Friday (docket 23-55466) to the 9th Circuit clerk. The plaintiffs in BJC Health System allege that when they visited BJC’s online patient portal to access electronic health records, BJC shared their protected health information with third-party marketing services in violation of state privacy laws, it said. The 8th Circuit, “in a comprehensive and carefully reasoned opinion,” affirmed the district court’s order remanding the action back to state court, said the letter. The 8th Circuit held that a party acts under a federal officer, within the meaning of the federal officer removal statute, only when it performs a basic governmental task, it said. That task involves a delegation of legal authority from a federal entity, it said. In other words, the party acts on the government’s behalf, and does the business of the federal government and not merely its own, it said. The 8th Circuit held that the design of private websites is not, and has never been, a basic governmental task, said the letter. When BJC created and operated an online portal for its patients, it wasn’t doing the federal government’s business but rather its own, it said. That BJC received a federal subsidy when it created its private website is an “insufficient” basis for removing a case under the federal officer removal statute, it said.