Key Points

  • The Court of Appeal affirmed the dismissal, without leave to amend, of four school districts' negligence and public nuisance suits against Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube.
  • Under California, Rhode Island and Florida law, the companies owed the districts no duty of care because the districts alleged only purely economic losses, and no exception to that rule applied.
  • A frustrated educational mission and lost staff time are not cognizable negligence injuries under state law, whatever their status under federal Article III standing doctrine.
  • Section 230 bars the districts' claims for vandalism prompted by third-party challenge videos because those claims turn on the content of the videos.
  • The public nuisance claims failed because the districts did not allege that an entire community was affected equally or indiscriminately, and San Diego lacked standing as a government entity that pleaded no injury to its property.

A California appeals court on Thursday upheld the dismissal of lawsuits by four public school districts that sought to make Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube pay for the costs of what the districts called a student mental health crisis caused by addictive social media platforms.

A three-judge panel of the Second Appellate District, Division Two, ruled unanimously for the companies. Justice Richardson wrote the opinion, joined by Presiding Justice Lui and Justice Goorvitch. The panel affirmed a 2024 judgment by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl in the coordinated state-court social media proceeding, JCCP No. 5255. Judge Kuhl had sustained the companies' demurrer without leave to amend.

The ruling holds that the districts' spending on additional personnel, staff training and discipline is a purely economic loss that negligence law in California, Florida and Rhode Island does not let them recover. It also holds that the districts failed to plead public nuisance claims under Washington, Florida or California law. In reaching those conclusions, the panel declined to follow a 2024 federal district court ruling in the Northern District of California that had declined to apply the economic loss rule to a similar negligence claim.

The plaintiffs were San Diego Unified School District, the School Board of Brevard County, Florida, Vancouver School District No. 37 in Washington, and West Warwick Public Schools in Rhode Island. Their complaints were the first selected for demurrer briefing in the coordinated proceeding.

The districts alleged that the platforms were built with features meant to maximize youth engagement, including an endless algorithmic feed, "intermittent variable rewards" and incessant notifications. They said they had hired more staff, expanded mental health services, diverted teachers' time to phone-related discipline, and repaired vandalism, including damage to restroom fixtures that they attributed to TikTok challenge videos.

Near the outset, the opinion acknowledged the districts' allegations. "We acknowledge the serious allegations of mental health harms experienced by many students and the impact of those harms on Plaintiffs' schools and student bodies," Justice Richardson wrote. The panel affirmed the trial court's ruling anyway, the opinion said, "because it follows existing precedents which we too are bound to follow, and which establish that these plaintiffs cannot proceed under the legal theories and factual allegations they have pled."

The negligence ruling rests on the economic loss rule, which generally bars negligence suits for financial harm unaccompanied by physical injury or property damage. The panel relied heavily on the California Supreme Court's decision in Southern California Gas Leak Cases. San Diego argued that only a small group of plaintiffs could bring claims like its own. The panel disagreed, citing the trial court's observation that private schools, colleges, employers and public health services could all claim similar costs.

"As with the proposed class of plaintiffs in Gas Leak Cases, there is no viable geographic (spatial) or temporal limitation on who could seek remedies for their economic losses," Justice Richardson wrote. Rejecting the argument that the rule would leave the companies undeterred, the court noted that "Defendants may still face individual personal injury lawsuits from their users, claims for statutory violations, and actions in abatement from appropriate government authorities."

The panel found the federal ruling unpersuasive, writing that its analysis of the economic loss rule "was truncated" and focused on other issues. Under Rhode Island law, the court held, the companies owed West Warwick no duty to avoid purely economic losses. Under Florida law, it rejected Brevard's argument that its constitutional and statutory duty to educate children gave it a "special interest" like the one Florida's high court had recognized for commercial fishermen harmed by pollution.

The districts also argued that a frustrated educational mission and lost staff time were noneconomic injuries outside the rule. They relied on federal cases holding that such harms can confer standing to sue under Article III of the U.S. Constitution. "But we are not a federal court and are not concerned with Article III standing," Justice Richardson wrote, adding that state negligence law "identifies only certain injuries as cognizable."

The vandalism claims failed under Section 230 of title 47 of the U.S. Code, a federal law that the opinion said confers broad immunity on providers who use the internet to publish information that originated from another source. The districts argued that the algorithm that showed students the challenge videos was the companies' own expressive conduct. The panel held that the claims turned on what the videos said. "The claims are not content agnostic; they do not remain the same regardless of the types of videos the students watched," the court wrote.

On public nuisance, a claim for interference with rights shared by a whole community, the panel held that the districts alleged harm only to some students. For Vancouver, that was not "enough to state a claim for public nuisance under Washington law." Brevard's claim failed because Florida requires that people be affected "in ways so indiscriminate and general" that the harm becomes a wrong to the community. The court also refused to recognize a public nuisance for violating a "public right to education." Justice Richardson wrote that "a plaintiff cannot merely add up multiple individual injuries to state a claim for public nuisance."

San Diego's nuisance claim failed for lack of standing. The panel joined other California appellate courts in holding that a government entity is not a "private person" entitled to sue under Civil Code section 3493. It also held that San Diego had not alleged injury to its property under Code of Civil Procedure section 731. "Any connection to property here is abstract at best," Justice Richardson wrote. "Accepting San Diego's position would convert virtually any personal injury affecting a property owner into a nuisance."

Lawyers for the school districts included Brian J. Panish of Panish|Shea|Ravipudi. Meta was represented by Mark W. Mosier of Covington & Burling, TikTok and ByteDance by Paul J. Watford of King & Spalding, Snap by Jonathan H. Blavin of Munger, Tolles & Olson, and Google and YouTube by Ashley W. Hardin of Williams & Connolly.

The judgment is affirmed, and the court ordered each side to bear its own costs on appeal. Because every claim failed on other grounds, the panel did not decide whether Section 230 and the First Amendment bar the districts' claims entirely. The opinion also notes that West Warwick withdrew its Rhode Island nuisance claim at oral argument.