Successor Files Short-Form Complaint on Behalf of Suicide Victim in Social Media MDL
Plaintiff Angelicia Smith filed a master short-form complaint as successor-in-interest to Giovanni Bourne, a Seneca Falls, New York, boy who died by suicide at 11, allegedly from participating in a viral social media challenge, said the Tuesday filing (dockets 4:23-cv-02680…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
and 4:22-md-03047) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland. The complaint asserted claims of liability for design defects and failure to warn and negligence against Meta, Snap, TikTok and Google; fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation against Meta; and wrongful death, survival action and loss of consortium and society against the four social media companies. The short-form complaint, permitted by case management order No. 7, said the child used Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube from 2017 to 2021 and, as a result, suffered addiction/compulsive use, depression, anxiety and self-harm by suicide. Motion-to-dismiss and opposition to the motion-to-dismiss deadlines in the multidistrict legislation are Thursday; the reply to motion-to-dismiss deadline is June 30.