Preview
FILED
Supe! rior Court of California
unty of Los Angeles
MAR 2'7 2024
David W. Slayton, Executive Officer Clerk of Court
By: L. M'Greene, Deputy
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
Social Media Cases
JCCPS255
(Lead Case: 22STCV21355)
Dept. 12 SSC
Hon. Carolyn B. Kuhl
Date of Hearing: March 20, 2024
Defendants’ Demurrer to Claims for Sex and Age Discrimination and
Non-Product Negligent Failure to Warn Asserted in Plaintiffs’ Master
Complaint and Identified Short-Form Complaints
Court’s Ruling: The court sustains the Demurrer to the Tenth Cause of
Action for Sex and Age Discrimination without leave to amend. The court
sustains the Demurrer with leave to amend as to the “additional count” of
“Non-Product Negligent Failure to Warn” referenced in the Short Form
Complaints that are the subject of this Demurrer.
Plaintiffs in these coordinated proceedings are minor users of social
media platforms (or parents of those users) who allege they have suffered
various types of harm as a result of the use of the platforms. Plaintiffs
bring their claims against muitiple Defendants that designed and operated
the following social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat,
TikTok, and YouTube. Facebook and Instagram are owned, designed, and
operated by a group of Defendants who are referred to collectively herein
as “Meta.” Snapchat is owned, designed, and operated by Defendant Snap
Inc. (Snap). TikTok is owned, designed, and operated by multiple
Defendants who are referred to collectively herein as “ByteDance.”
YouTube is owned, designed, and operated by multiple Defendants referred
to collectively herein as “Google.”
On May 16, 2023, Plaintiffs filed their Master Complaint. The Master
Complaint alleges 13 causes of action:
(1) Strict Liability - Design Defect (against all Defendants);
(2) Strict Liability = Failure to Warn (against all
Defendants);
(3) Negligence - Design (against all Defendants);
(4) Negligence - Failure to Warn (against all Defendants);
(5) Negligence (against all Defendants);
(6) Negligent Undertaking (against all Defendants);
(7) Fraudulent Concealment and Misrepresentation
(against Meta);
(8) Negligent Concealment and Misrepresentation (against
Meta);
(9) Negligence per se (against all Defendants);
(10) Sex and Age Discrimination (against all Defendants);
(11) Wrongful Death (against all Defendants);
(12) Survival Action (against all Defendants); and
(13) Loss of Consortium and Society (against all
Defendants).
Each Plaintiff or family also filed a short-form complaint that adopts
some or all of the allegations of the Master Complaint, specifies each
Plaintiff's injuries, and adds individual allegations concerning the social
media platforms used by each Plaintiff and how those platforms injured him
or her.
The allegations of the Master Complaint are summarized at pages two
through twelve of the Court Ruling on Defendants’ Demurrer to Master
Complaint and Three Short Form Complaints, Oct. 13, 2023 (October 2023
Ruling). In the 89-page October 2023 Ruling, this court sustained a
demurrer to the Master Complaint and three short-form complaints as to the
First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Eighth and Ninth Causes of Action, and
the court overruled the demurrer as to the Fifth and Seventh Causes of
Action.
Seven short-form complaints are the subject of the instant Demurrer:
(1) First Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And
Demand For Jury Trial, A.S. ex rel. E.S. v. Meta Platforms,
Inc., et al., Case No. 22STCV28202 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed
Jan. 5, 2024) (referred to herein as “A.S. SFC”).
(2) First Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And
Demand For Jury Trial, GlennMills v. Meta Platforms, Inc.,
et al., Case No. 23SMCV03371 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed Jan. 5,
2024) (referred to herein as “Glenn-Mills SFC”).
(3) First Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And
2
Demand For Jury Trial, K.L. ex rel. S.S. v. Meta Platforms,
Inc., et al., Case No. CIV SB 2218921 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed
Jan. 5, 2024) (referred to herein as “K.L. SFC”).
(4) First Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And
Demand For Jury Trial, N.S. ex re/. Z.H. v. Snap Inc., Case
No. 22CV019089 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed Jan. 5, 2024)
(referred to herein as “N.S. SFC”).
(5) First Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And
Demand For Jury Trial, P.F. ex rel. A.F. v. Meta Platforms,
Inc., et al., Case No. 23SMCV03371 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed
Jan. 5, 2024) (referred to herein as “P.F. SFC”).
(6) Second Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages
And Demand For Jury Trial, J.S. and D.S. ex rel. L.H.S. v.
Meta Platforms, Inc., et al., Case No. CV2022-1472 (L.A.
Super. Ct. filed Jan. 9, 2024) (referred to herein as “J.S.
SFC”).
(7) Second Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages
And Demand For Jury Trial, K.K. ex rel. S.K. v. Meta
Platforms, Inc., et al., Case No. 23SMCV03371 (L.A. Super.
Ct. filed Jan. 17, 2024) (referred to herein as “K.K. SFC”).
The court refers to these seven short-form complaints as the “January
SFCs.” The January SFCs and the Master Complaint are referred to herein
collectively as the “Operative Pleadings.”
Defendants’ current Demurrer challenges causes of action for sex and
age discrimination and for “non product failure to warn.” Six of the January
SFCs incorporate the Tenth Cause of Action of the Master Complaint, which
alleges a claim for Sex and Age Discrimination. (Master Complaint 94 1014-
1023 at pp. 289-290.) All seven of the January SFCs allege a cause of
action for “Non Product Negligent Failure to Warn” under the heading
“Additional Counts.” This cause of action as pleaded in the January SFCs
does not include any factual allegations and does not incorporate by
reference any factual allegations of the Master Complaint. (See, e.g., AS,
SFC, 4 7.)
Discussion
Sex and Age Discrimination Claim
This is the second time that Plaintiffs, when presented with a demurrer
to their claims for sex and age discrimination, have withdrawn the cause of
action. In this case, Plaintiffs specifically state that they wish to withdraw
the cause of action from both the January SFCs and the Master Complaint.
3
Based on this concession, the court sustains the Demurrer to the Tenth
Cause of Action of the Master Complaint and to all claims for sex and age
discrimination pleaded in the January SFCs.
Defendants request that the court instead dismiss with prejudice the
claims for sex and age discrimination. Plaintiffs object to this request. The
court declines Defendants’ request on procedural grounds. Code of Civil
Procedure section 581 allows for dismissal of individual causes of action at
the request of a plaintiff, but only enumerates bases for involuntary
dismissal with prejudice of entire actions as to one or more defendants.
Defendants cite Tri-Continent Intern’ Corp. v. Paris Savings & Loan
Ass‘n (1993) 12 Cal.App.4th 1354, 1359, in support of their request that the
Eighth Cause of Action be dismissed with prejudice on this Demurrer. But
that case involved a court’s ruling on a motion for summary judgment and
whether the court had properly granted summary adjudication of a claim
that the plaintiff had “voluntarily eliminated.” (Id. at pp. 1358-1359.) The
case does not address the procedural propriety of dismissal when a plaintiff
does not defend a claim in the face of a demurrer.
Defendants’ rights and interests are adequately protected by an order
sustaining the Demurrer to the claim for age and sex discrimination without
leave to amend. If Plaintiffs act without substantial justification in the future
to attempt to reinstate this claim, the court would entertain a request for
sanctions.
“Non Product Negligent Failure to Warn” Claim
The Master Complaint, prior to this court’s October 2023 Ruling,
alleged causes of action sounding in product liability including a claim for
“Strict Liability - Failure to Warn” (Master Complaint 4 851-868 at pp. 261-
265) and a claim for “Negligence - Failure to Warn” (Master Complaint 9
893-911 at pp. 268-270.) Each of these causes of action included an
enumeration of warnings that allegedly should have been given by
Defendants based on risks and dangers of harm that Plaintiffs allegedly
would not have anticipated.
In this court’s October 2023 Ruling, the court held that Defendants’
social media platforms are not analogous to tangible products for purposes
of product liability analysis, that the “risk-benefit” and “consumer
expectations” analyses that underlie product liability doctrine are not
suitable for analyzing Defendants’ alleged liability, and that potential liability
should be determined by focusing on Defendants’ conduct. (October 2023
Ruling, at pp. 26-40.) On that basis, the court sustained the demurrer to
4
the product liability failure to warn causes of action pleaded in the Master
Complaint.
Plaintiffs now purport to plead a claim for negligent failure to warn
outside of the context of product liability law; but for reasons not adequately
explained, Plaintiffs provide no factual allegations in the January SFCs and
do not allege that any of the detailed factual assertions of the Master
Complaint are incorporated by reference as a basis for the “non product
negligent failure to warn claim.”
In their Opposition to the current Demurrer, Plaintiffs suggest that
their new negligent failure to warn claims should be understood to be based
on, “but not limited to,” several factual allegations of the Master Complaint.
(Opp’n Br. at p. 5.) But a brief is not an operative pleading, and Defendants
and the court are left to guess which of the many detailed facts alleged in
the Master Complaint Plaintiffs would rely on to stand as a basis to support a
duty to warn.
The negligent failure to warn claim is inadequately pleaded. Even
under California’s liberal pleading standards, Plaintiffs must do more than
merely name the cause of action they seek to allege. Here, Plaintiffs have
failed to “set forth the essential facts of [negligent failure to warn claim]
with reasonable precision and with particularity sufficient to acquaint a
defendant with the nature, source and extent of [the] cause of action.”
(Ludgate Ins. Co. v. Lockheed Martin Corp. (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 592,
608.)
This complete lack of allegations is especially problematic because
Defendants’ different potential chalienges to a failure to warn claim depend
on the types of facts underlying that claim. As the California Supreme Court
has explained, all persons generally have a duty to take reasonable care in
their activities to avoid causing injury, but a special inquiry is required to
determine whether a person has a legal duty to take action to protect a
plaintiff from injuries caused by a third party. (Brown v. USA Taekwondo
(2021) 11 Cal.5th 204, 209.) Moreover, insofar as Plaintiffs base a duty to
warn on the content of third party speech to which a Plaintiff is exposed,
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230) may bar
the claim. (See generally October 2023 Ruling, at pp. 15-20.) Plaintiffs
must thus clarify the nature of any negligent failure to warn claim before
Defendants can be expected to raise (and before this court be expected to
rule on) any substantive pleadings challenges thereto.
Defendants’ Demurrer is sustained with leave to amend as to the
January SFCs “additional count” of “non product negligent failure to warn.”
5
A deadline for the amendment will be set at the next status conference in
the coordinated proceeding.
Cuban BAMA
Date: 3/27/2024
The Honotable Carolyn Kuhl
Judge of the Superior Court
Preview
FILED Supe! rior Court of California unty of Los Angeles MAR 2'7 2024 David W. Slayton, Executive Officer Clerk of Court By: L. M'Greene, Deputy SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES Social Media Cases JCCPS255 (Lead Case: 22STCV21355) Dept. 12 SSC Hon. Carolyn B. Kuhl Date of Hearing: March 20, 2024 Defendants’ Demurrer to Claims for Sex and Age Discrimination and Non-Product Negligent Failure to Warn Asserted in Plaintiffs’ Master Complaint and Identified Short-Form Complaints Court’s Ruling: The court sustains the Demurrer to the Tenth Cause of Action for Sex and Age Discrimination without leave to amend. The court sustains the Demurrer with leave to amend as to the “additional count” of “Non-Product Negligent Failure to Warn” referenced in the Short Form Complaints that are the subject of this Demurrer. Plaintiffs in these coordinated proceedings are minor users of social media platforms (or parents of those users) who allege they have suffered various types of harm as a result of the use of the platforms. Plaintiffs bring their claims against muitiple Defendants that designed and operated the following social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. Facebook and Instagram are owned, designed, and operated by a group of Defendants who are referred to collectively herein as “Meta.” Snapchat is owned, designed, and operated by Defendant Snap Inc. (Snap). TikTok is owned, designed, and operated by multiple Defendants who are referred to collectively herein as “ByteDance.” YouTube is owned, designed, and operated by multiple Defendants referred to collectively herein as “Google.” On May 16, 2023, Plaintiffs filed their Master Complaint. The Master Complaint alleges 13 causes of action: (1) Strict Liability - Design Defect (against all Defendants); (2) Strict Liability = Failure to Warn (against all Defendants); (3) Negligence - Design (against all Defendants); (4) Negligence - Failure to Warn (against all Defendants); (5) Negligence (against all Defendants); (6) Negligent Undertaking (against all Defendants); (7) Fraudulent Concealment and Misrepresentation (against Meta); (8) Negligent Concealment and Misrepresentation (against Meta); (9) Negligence per se (against all Defendants); (10) Sex and Age Discrimination (against all Defendants); (11) Wrongful Death (against all Defendants); (12) Survival Action (against all Defendants); and (13) Loss of Consortium and Society (against all Defendants). Each Plaintiff or family also filed a short-form complaint that adopts some or all of the allegations of the Master Complaint, specifies each Plaintiff's injuries, and adds individual allegations concerning the social media platforms used by each Plaintiff and how those platforms injured him or her. The allegations of the Master Complaint are summarized at pages two through twelve of the Court Ruling on Defendants’ Demurrer to Master Complaint and Three Short Form Complaints, Oct. 13, 2023 (October 2023 Ruling). In the 89-page October 2023 Ruling, this court sustained a demurrer to the Master Complaint and three short-form complaints as to the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Eighth and Ninth Causes of Action, and the court overruled the demurrer as to the Fifth and Seventh Causes of Action. Seven short-form complaints are the subject of the instant Demurrer: (1) First Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And Demand For Jury Trial, A.S. ex rel. E.S. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., et al., Case No. 22STCV28202 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed Jan. 5, 2024) (referred to herein as “A.S. SFC”). (2) First Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And Demand For Jury Trial, GlennMills v. Meta Platforms, Inc., et al., Case No. 23SMCV03371 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed Jan. 5, 2024) (referred to herein as “Glenn-Mills SFC”). (3) First Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And 2 Demand For Jury Trial, K.L. ex rel. S.S. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., et al., Case No. CIV SB 2218921 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed Jan. 5, 2024) (referred to herein as “K.L. SFC”). (4) First Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And Demand For Jury Trial, N.S. ex re/. Z.H. v. Snap Inc., Case No. 22CV019089 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed Jan. 5, 2024) (referred to herein as “N.S. SFC”). (5) First Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And Demand For Jury Trial, P.F. ex rel. A.F. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., et al., Case No. 23SMCV03371 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed Jan. 5, 2024) (referred to herein as “P.F. SFC”). (6) Second Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And Demand For Jury Trial, J.S. and D.S. ex rel. L.H.S. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., et al., Case No. CV2022-1472 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed Jan. 9, 2024) (referred to herein as “J.S. SFC”). (7) Second Amended Short Form Complaint For Damages And Demand For Jury Trial, K.K. ex rel. S.K. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., et al., Case No. 23SMCV03371 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed Jan. 17, 2024) (referred to herein as “K.K. SFC”). The court refers to these seven short-form complaints as the “January SFCs.” The January SFCs and the Master Complaint are referred to herein collectively as the “Operative Pleadings.” Defendants’ current Demurrer challenges causes of action for sex and age discrimination and for “non product failure to warn.” Six of the January SFCs incorporate the Tenth Cause of Action of the Master Complaint, which alleges a claim for Sex and Age Discrimination. (Master Complaint 94 1014- 1023 at pp. 289-290.) All seven of the January SFCs allege a cause of action for “Non Product Negligent Failure to Warn” under the heading “Additional Counts.” This cause of action as pleaded in the January SFCs does not include any factual allegations and does not incorporate by reference any factual allegations of the Master Complaint. (See, e.g., AS, SFC, 4 7.) Discussion Sex and Age Discrimination Claim This is the second time that Plaintiffs, when presented with a demurrer to their claims for sex and age discrimination, have withdrawn the cause of action. In this case, Plaintiffs specifically state that they wish to withdraw the cause of action from both the January SFCs and the Master Complaint. 3 Based on this concession, the court sustains the Demurrer to the Tenth Cause of Action of the Master Complaint and to all claims for sex and age discrimination pleaded in the January SFCs. Defendants request that the court instead dismiss with prejudice the claims for sex and age discrimination. Plaintiffs object to this request. The court declines Defendants’ request on procedural grounds. Code of Civil Procedure section 581 allows for dismissal of individual causes of action at the request of a plaintiff, but only enumerates bases for involuntary dismissal with prejudice of entire actions as to one or more defendants. Defendants cite Tri-Continent Intern’ Corp. v. Paris Savings & Loan Ass‘n (1993) 12 Cal.App.4th 1354, 1359, in support of their request that the Eighth Cause of Action be dismissed with prejudice on this Demurrer. But that case involved a court’s ruling on a motion for summary judgment and whether the court had properly granted summary adjudication of a claim that the plaintiff had “voluntarily eliminated.” (Id. at pp. 1358-1359.) The case does not address the procedural propriety of dismissal when a plaintiff does not defend a claim in the face of a demurrer. Defendants’ rights and interests are adequately protected by an order sustaining the Demurrer to the claim for age and sex discrimination without leave to amend. If Plaintiffs act without substantial justification in the future to attempt to reinstate this claim, the court would entertain a request for sanctions. “Non Product Negligent Failure to Warn” Claim The Master Complaint, prior to this court’s October 2023 Ruling, alleged causes of action sounding in product liability including a claim for “Strict Liability - Failure to Warn” (Master Complaint 4 851-868 at pp. 261- 265) and a claim for “Negligence - Failure to Warn” (Master Complaint 9 893-911 at pp. 268-270.) Each of these causes of action included an enumeration of warnings that allegedly should have been given by Defendants based on risks and dangers of harm that Plaintiffs allegedly would not have anticipated. In this court’s October 2023 Ruling, the court held that Defendants’ social media platforms are not analogous to tangible products for purposes of product liability analysis, that the “risk-benefit” and “consumer expectations” analyses that underlie product liability doctrine are not suitable for analyzing Defendants’ alleged liability, and that potential liability should be determined by focusing on Defendants’ conduct. (October 2023 Ruling, at pp. 26-40.) On that basis, the court sustained the demurrer to 4 the product liability failure to warn causes of action pleaded in the Master Complaint. Plaintiffs now purport to plead a claim for negligent failure to warn outside of the context of product liability law; but for reasons not adequately explained, Plaintiffs provide no factual allegations in the January SFCs and do not allege that any of the detailed factual assertions of the Master Complaint are incorporated by reference as a basis for the “non product negligent failure to warn claim.” In their Opposition to the current Demurrer, Plaintiffs suggest that their new negligent failure to warn claims should be understood to be based on, “but not limited to,” several factual allegations of the Master Complaint. (Opp’n Br. at p. 5.) But a brief is not an operative pleading, and Defendants and the court are left to guess which of the many detailed facts alleged in the Master Complaint Plaintiffs would rely on to stand as a basis to support a duty to warn. The negligent failure to warn claim is inadequately pleaded. Even under California’s liberal pleading standards, Plaintiffs must do more than merely name the cause of action they seek to allege. Here, Plaintiffs have failed to “set forth the essential facts of [negligent failure to warn claim] with reasonable precision and with particularity sufficient to acquaint a defendant with the nature, source and extent of [the] cause of action.” (Ludgate Ins. Co. v. Lockheed Martin Corp. (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 592, 608.) This complete lack of allegations is especially problematic because Defendants’ different potential chalienges to a failure to warn claim depend on the types of facts underlying that claim. As the California Supreme Court has explained, all persons generally have a duty to take reasonable care in their activities to avoid causing injury, but a special inquiry is required to determine whether a person has a legal duty to take action to protect a plaintiff from injuries caused by a third party. (Brown v. USA Taekwondo (2021) 11 Cal.5th 204, 209.) Moreover, insofar as Plaintiffs base a duty to warn on the content of third party speech to which a Plaintiff is exposed, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230) may bar the claim. (See generally October 2023 Ruling, at pp. 15-20.) Plaintiffs must thus clarify the nature of any negligent failure to warn claim before Defendants can be expected to raise (and before this court be expected to rule on) any substantive pleadings challenges thereto. Defendants’ Demurrer is sustained with leave to amend as to the January SFCs “additional count” of “non product negligent failure to warn.” 5 A deadline for the amendment will be set at the next status conference in the coordinated proceeding. Cuban BAMA Date: 3/27/2024 The Honotable Carolyn Kuhl Judge of the Superior Court