Meta Platforms has filed a motion asking the Los Angeles judge who oversaw a recent trial to overturn a jury verdict that found the company responsible for a woman’s depression, or alternatively to order a new trial. The filing was submitted on Monday and made public on Wednesday.
The March jury found that both Meta and Google, the parent company of YouTube, were negligent in how their platforms were designed and failed to warn users about associated dangers. The jury awarded the plaintiff, identified as Kaley G.M., $4.2 million from Meta and $1.8 million from Google.
In its post-trial filing, Meta argued it is protected from the plaintiff’s claims by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the 1996 federal statute that generally shields online platforms from liability for user-generated content. According to Meta, the evidence presented at trial repeatedly connected Kaley’s mental health challenges to the material she viewed, rather than to product design features such as autoplay and infinite scroll, which were central to the lawsuit’s allegations.
Google has informed the court that it plans to appeal. The company has also asked the judge to set aside the verdict against it or to permit a new trial. Snap and TikTok were named defendants in the case but reached settlements with the plaintiff prior to the trial.
Attorneys representing the plaintiff did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Beyond the individual verdicts, the litigation in Los Angeles sits within a much larger wave of legal actions. Thousands of similar suits have been filed in federal and state courts by individuals and families, and additional cases have been brought by school districts and by state governments. Those cases make broadly similar claims - that platform designs were intended to be addictive and that such designs helped trigger a nationwide mental health crisis among teenagers and young people.
The Los Angeles trial was treated as a bellwether for the numerous state court cases - a test case that could influence settlement talks and legal strategy across the broader set of lawsuits. Lower court judges have, in many instances, rejected defendants’ arguments that Section 230 precludes these claims. How courts ultimately interpret Section 230 is likely to be a central issue on appeal, and that interpretation could have wide-ranging implications for many internet companies.
The post-trial filings by Meta and Google set the stage for the next phase of litigation, in which judges will consider whether the jury’s findings should stand or be overturned. The companies’ appeals and motions will likely focus on legal protections for platforms and on whether the trial record established a causal link between product design and the plaintiff’s mental health harms, as opposed to the content she consumed.
For now, the verdicts remain contested in court, and the broader cohort of related lawsuits continues to proceed in both federal and state venues.