LA Social Media Trial Dismissal Leaves Vast Landscape of Cases

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A teenage boy’s last-minute decision to withdraw his social media addiction lawsuit against Meta Platforms Inc. before trial is a setback for the sprawling litigation playing out in the Los Angeles court that saw early success with a jury awarding $6 million to a 20-year-old girl.<br>However, the withdrawal of the second bellwether case’s plaintiff is a delay that doesn’t dramatically alter the landscape of the mass tort, with seven more trials still on the books in the initial tranche. Social media companies are facing more than 3,000 individual lawsuits, including in California Superior Court in Los Angeles County.

WATCH: Is social media Big Tobacco 2.0? A look at the lawsuits against big tech over teens’ mental health.

“There are other trials that have been chosen as bellwether trials,” said University of California Irvine law professor Ari Waldman. “We’re not dealing with a blank slate.”<br>The case dismissed on Wednesday was brought by a boy known in court documents as R.K.C., a 15-year-old from Panama City, Fla. He said he started using social media when he was just eight. He would spend up to 10 hours a day on the platforms and developed insomnia from nonstop scrolling, according to court records. His alleged injuries included social media addiction, severe depression, suicidal ideation, binge eating disorder, panic disorder, and anxiety.<br>Lawyers for R.K.C. said he decided to withdraw the claims against Meta “in light of the overall successful result of the litigation and his concerns about enduring a grueling weekslong trial.”<br>A spokesperson for Meta said the plaintiff dropped the lawsuit without receiving any payment, adding that the company would not back away from defending “baseless” lawsuits.<br>Google‘s YouTube and TikTok previously struck settlements with the boy and his family. Snap Inc. said earlier this week that the company had reached a tentative agreement.<br>For Meta, not having to face a second trial in LA this summer will save it from not only the possibility of another big jury loss, but the public perception of more allegations about addicting young people.<br>“There are lots of things that can come from these trials that aren’t specifically related to literal precedent,” said Waldman, who is also the director of UC Irvine Law’s Center for Technology and Justice.<br>As cases pile up, companies like Meta have to contend more and more with a common perception that the products are addictive, Waldman said.<br>This could lead to people curtailing their usage, and additional state or local government regulation, Waldman added.<br>Upcoming Appeal<br>The dismissal also allows the company to focus on its appeal of the March jury verdict.<br>Meta and YouTube filed notices of appeal of that verdict earlier this month, though nothing has been uploaded to the state appellate court yet.<br>Duke University School of Law professor Stuart Benjamin said he anticipated the appeal to focus on the First Amendment and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. He expects the companies to argue that infinite scrolling functions can’t be separated from content, which is protected speech and therefore insulates them from liability.<br>The question of whether infinite auto play was itself addictive, setting the content aside, will likely be before the court, Benjamin said.<br>Meta may face better circumstances with its appeal before a panel of judges, Benjamin said, rather than a jury who may be skeptical of the company’s complicated legal arguments.<br>Though this case is off its plate, Meta will still face trials this summer. In August, a federal case in the Northern District of California is set to begin with a group of attorneys general pursuing trillions of dollars in claims about addicting users. Separately, jury selection in Tennessee’s own trial against Meta is underway in state court in a trial expected to last weeks.<br>The case is R.K.C. v Meta Platforms Inc, Cal. Super. Ct., No. 23STCV31485.

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