Thayer v. Doximity, Inc.
Issue
In *Thayer v. Doximity, Inc.*, Doximity argues that displaying a non-registered physician's publicly available credentials in an unclaimed professional profile cannot constitute misappropriation of name or likeness — under either California common law or Cal. Civ. Code § 3344 — because the use is incidental rather than prominent, and because a non-registered user's profile is structurally excluded from the platform's revenue stream. The motion also asks whether Section 230(c)(1) independently immunizes a platform that assembles such profiles from third-party-sourced data, even when that assembly serves a commercially motivated subscription model.
What Happened
Doximity filed this 34-page Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss on April 10, 2026, in the Northern District of California, seeking to dispose of the entire class-action complaint before any discovery; a hearing is set for July 14, 2026, before Hon. Trina L. Thompson. The complaint, filed February 9, 2026, alleges that Doximity pre-populated unclaimed profiles with physicians' identities and used them to sell enterprise subscriptions without consent. Doximity's motion advances five principal arguments: the incidental-use doctrine categorically bars both misappropriation claims at the pleading stage; the complaint pleads injury in only conclusory terms insufficient under *Iqbal/Twombly*; non-registered users have no traceable commercial connection to the platform's revenue; unjust enrichment is not a cognizable standalone claim under California law; and the UCL claims fail both independently and as derivatives of the misappropriation theories. As a backstop, Doximity invokes Section 230(c)(1), characterizing its profiles as passive aggregations of third-party content and therefore immune from all four claims. It seeks dismissal with prejudice and no leave to amend.
Why It Matters
This motion asks a federal court to decide, before any discovery, whether companies that build products around aggregated professional identities can use the incidental-use doctrine and Section 230 to foreclose right-of-publicity and unjust enrichment claims at the pleading stage — effectively insulating the commercial architecture of their platforms from factual scrutiny. The Section 230 argument is particularly consequential: if Hon. Thompson rejects it even in passing, that ruling would add to a developing body of law on whether identity-as-product business models are distinguishable from passive hosting for immunity purposes. The treatment of incidental use as a pure legal question carries its own stakes, since resolving it at 12(b)(6) prevents plaintiffs from conducting discovery into how a platform actually attributes revenue to unregistered profiles — an issue that will matter to every professional-network operator running similar unclaimed-profile features.
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