Product Liability Update - April 2024

Courts Assess Product Liability Allegations Against Social Media Giants

Introduction

A slew of cases filed in the past year may have you asking, "is the next product liability plaintiff frontier the land of the Social Media Giants?" The plaintiffs in these cases range from personal injury claimants, to school districts, to states' Attorneys General, and the defendants they seek to hold liable are names we are all familiar with: Meta, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube, to name just several. Plaintiffs allege a broad set of harms, including but not limited to addiction, depression, and self-harm, particularly in minors, leading to a youth mental health crisis. Here, we examine two recent decisions that provide a mixed picture of whether the Social Media landscape is fruitful or barren for product liability claimants.