Bradford v. Asian Health Services

After a data breach exposed some of his protected personal information, Ira Bradford brought a class action against Asian Health Services, a community health center, arguing that its failure to protect his data and to respond once it learned of the data breach violated California law. Asian Health Services removed the case to federal court invoking two separate statutes. First, it asserted that the Federally Supported Health Centers Assistance Act gave it both a right to remove, and immunity from the claims. Second, it argued that, by virtue of its participation in a federal grant program, it was both a “federal officer” and acting under federal officers, and entitled to remove under the federal-officer removal statute. The district court rejected both arguments and ordered the case remanded to state court. Asian Health Services appealed.

Representing Mr. Bradford in the Ninth Circuit, our brief explains that the district court correctly remanded the case, both because the FSHCAA does not allow private parties to remove where the Attorney General has filed a timely appearance in state court, and because Mr. Bradford’s data breach claims do not result from the performance of a “medical, surgical, dental, or related function”—as is necessary for the FSHCAA’s removal and immunity provisions to apply. We also argued that Asian Health Services forfeited its arguments as to federal-officer removal, and that removal under that statute was both untimely and lacked merit regardless.