Balletto v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
- Jeffrey White
- 4:23-cv-01017
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In Balletto v. Honda, Judge White granted Honda’s motion to dismiss a California privacy claim, allowing Balletto to amend her complaint.
Beverly Balletto’s California privacy claim, brought for herself and a proposed class, was dismissed at the pleading stage, but the court allowed her to amend; American Honda Motor Co., Inc. may respond to an amended complaint.
What happened
In Balletto v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc., Beverly Balletto alleged that Honda’s website chat service, operated by Salesforce, intercepted her electronic communications without her consent. She brought one claim under California’s Invasion of Privacy Act on behalf of herself and a proposed class.
The court considered whether Balletto alleged facts showing that Salesforce was more than a recording tool and could use the communications for another purpose. The court concluded that her allegations did not support a reasonable inference that Salesforce had that capability, so they did not adequately state a claim.
Judge Jeffrey S. White granted Honda’s motion to dismiss and allowed Balletto to amend the claim. The court set November 15, 2023, as the deadline for an amended complaint and scheduled a case-management conference.
The detailed version
- Balletto v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc. · No. 4:23-cv-01017
- Jeffrey White
- Oct. 24, 2023
Background
Beverly Balletto visited Honda’s website in April 2022 and used its “Chat” function. The chat software was provided by Salesforce, Inc., and ran from Salesforce’s servers. Balletto alleged that Salesforce analyzed customer-support interactions in real time to create live transcripts and that the chat system functioned as a wiretap. She alleged that Honda aided Salesforce in intercepting her electronic communications without her consent.
Balletto asserted one claim under California’s Invasion of Privacy Act, California Penal Code section 631, on behalf of herself and a proposed class. The statute addresses several forms of interception and assistance in unlawful interception, but it exempts a party to a conversation from liability. The opinion states that, because Honda could not be liable for directly attempting to learn the contents or meaning of the chat communication, Balletto alleged that Salesforce engaged in that conduct and that Honda allowed Salesforce to listen in.
Court’s analysis
The court evaluated the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not allege enough facts to state a legally plausible claim. The court compared the allegations to two California cases. In one, a participant’s tape recording was not treated as unlawful eavesdropping. In the other, a person secretly listening to a conversation as an unannounced second auditor was found to have violated the privacy statute.
The court focused on whether Salesforce had the capability to use its record of the interaction for a purpose other than providing the chat service to Honda. The court rejected Honda’s argument that Balletto had to allege that Honda used information from the chat for its own financial benefit, reasoning that the statute did not impose that additional requirement.
However, the court found that Balletto’s allegations were not materially different from allegations in another case involving Salesforce’s chat function. In the court’s view, the complaint did not provide facts supporting a reasonable inference that Salesforce could use the communications for any purpose other than providing them to Honda. The court therefore treated the chat function as more like a tape recorder than a separate, unannounced listener.
Ruling
The court concluded that Balletto failed to state a claim under California Penal Code section
- It GRANTED Honda’s motion to dismiss, with leave to amend, because the court could not conclude that amendment would be futile. Balletto could file and serve an amended complaint by November 15,
- Honda’s response was due December 6,
- The court also scheduled an initial case-management conference for January 26, 2024, and required a joint case-management statement by January 19, 2024.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.