Inside Wellstar’s Proposed $4.25 Million Tracking Settlement

The Facts

The proposed settlement places two unusually different numbers side by side: an estimated 870,000 class members and a $4.25 million common fund. It does not assign a specific payment to any one person.

Suzanne Fehr initially sued Wellstar in April 2024. An amended complaint added Susan Mares, Kerry Morris, and Amimul Sadequee as plaintiffs. They asserted eight claims arising from alleged disclosures through tracking technology installed on Wellstar’s online properties.

The agreement defines the settlement class as U.S. residents whose information was disclosed to a third party through tracking technologies on Wellstar’s website or patient portal during the covered period. Judges, certain Wellstar insiders, class counsel, and people who validly opt out are excluded.

The settlement fund is described as non-reversionary once the deal takes effect. In ordinary administration, money left after payments would go to a court-approved nonprofit rather than return to Wellstar. The parties propose the Good Samaritan Health Center of Cobb or a similar recipient. If the settlement fails to receive approval or is terminated, however, the remaining money may be returned after administration costs already incurred.

What Wellstar Allegedly Did

The plaintiffs’ account is straightforward. They allege that Wellstar placed tracking pixels, cookies, and related technologies on its public website and patient portal. Those tools allegedly disclosed personally identifiable information and protected health information to outside companies, including Meta and Google.

A tracking pixel is code embedded in an online property that can communicate with another company’s systems when a page loads or a user interacts with it. A cookie stores or retrieves information through the user’s browser. Here, plaintiffs alleged that Wellstar’s use of such technologies transmitted private information and invaded class members’ privacy.

The supplied agreement doesn’t identify the precise data fields allegedly sent, which pages or portal actions produced each disclosure, how often transmissions occurred, or what the recipients did with the information. It also doesn’t establish that every class member’s information was identical in sensitivity or scope.

What It Meant for the People Covered

The documented class-wide consequence is legal and practical: approximately 870,000 people are included in a settlement process because the parties identify them as people whose information was disclosed through Wellstar’s tracking technologies during the class period.

The plaintiffs allege that those disclosures invaded their privacy. The settlement document does not establish identity theft, direct financial loss, physical injury, medical harm, or a particular downstream use of the information. No personal-injury claims are included in the release.

For class members, the immediate choice is whether to file a claim, object, opt out, or do nothing. Only valid claimants receive money. People who do nothing receive no cash but remain bound by the release if the settlement becomes final.

The proposed deal converts an alleged privacy invasion into a claims process—but it does not value any individual person’s information in advance.

How the $4.25 Million Would Be Divided

The advertised fund is not the amount reserved exclusively for class-member checks. The same pool pays for notice and settlement administration, taxes, approved legal fees and litigation expenses, service awards for the named plaintiffs, and payments to valid claimants.

Class counsel may ask the court for one-third of the fund, approximately $1,416,666.67, plus reimbursement of litigation costs. The four class representatives may seek $2,500 each, for a combined $10,000. None of those requests is automatic; the court must approve them.

The agreement supplies no estimate for administration costs, litigation expenses, the claims rate, or the resulting payment per claimant. A larger number of valid claims would divide the available money more ways. A smaller number would increase each pro rata share.

Approved payments would be distributed within 60 days after the settlement becomes effective. Checks expire after 90 days. The agreement permits electronic payment as well as checks, and uncashed amounts eventually become residual funds.

The Release Is Broader Than the Payment Process

If the deal becomes final, class members who don’t opt out release claims arising from the alleged disclosure, use, interception, or transfer of information through tracking technologies on Wellstar’s web properties. The release covers known and unknown claims related to that conduct and extends to Wellstar and a broad group of related entities and representatives.

Submitting a claim is necessary to receive money. It is not necessary to become bound. That difference makes inaction consequential.

The agreement sets the claim deadline at 75 days after the notice date. Opt-out and objection deadlines are set at 60 days after notice. The actual calendar dates in the attached notice forms remain placeholders and should not be treated as operative deadlines.

Another term gives Wellstar the option to terminate the settlement if more than 150 class members validly opt out. That provision does not automatically end the deal at 151 opt-outs, but it allows Wellstar to do so.

No Operational Reform Appears in the Agreement

The settlement consideration described in the supplied agreement is monetary. It contains no requirement that Wellstar remove a tracking technology, change its website or portal, delete previously disclosed information, submit to an audit, or adopt a new privacy program.

That omission doesn’t establish that Wellstar made no changes outside the agreement. It means the settlement itself supplies no enforceable operational remedy of that kind and does not tell readers whether the disputed tracking practices continue.

How the Case Reached a Deal

What the Court Has—and Has Not—Decided

The August 2025 ruling meant two claims survived the pleading stage. It did not establish that Wellstar violated the law, that every alleged disclosure occurred, or that plaintiffs were entitled to damages.

The distinction remains important because the settlement agreement contains a proposed preliminary-approval order written as if the court had approved the deal. But the exhibit is labeled proposed, leaves the hearing date and judicial signature blank, and does not establish that the order was entered.

If entered, the proposed order would provisionally certify the class for settlement purposes, appoint Epiq as administrator, approve the notice plan, and schedule a final-approval process. Final approval would require a later determination that the settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate.

Wellstar denies every allegation, contention, claim, and charge of wrongdoing or liability. The agreement expressly states that the settlement is not an admission.