[skizm]

> The plaintiff is a 20-year-old California woman identified as K.G.M. because she was a minor at the time of her alleged personal injury.

I didn't realize this was literally a single person claiming they were personally injured by literally every major social media company. How does that even work? What laws are purported to have been broken here? I wholeheartedly support some sort of regulatory framework around social media, but this specific case seems like a cash grab. It was already successful too, since Snap and TikTok have settled.

[jumboshrimp]

From a Rolling Stone article:

"K.G.M.’s lawsuit was selected as a so-called bellwether case and is proceeding first among more than a thousand personal-injury complaints under a coordinated, court-managed process meant to eliminate the risk of inconsistent rulings at subsequent trials."

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

"How does that even work?"

There is a master complaint and each plaintiff files a short-form complaint

Because the injuries will vary from plaintiff to plaintiff class action will not suffice. This is why each plaintiff must file individually

To learn more: https://www.jpml.uscourts.gov/articles

Here is the master complaint for the personal injury plaintiffs

https://dn710108.ca.archive.org/0/items/gov.uscourts.cand.40...

Here is the short-form complaint for personal injury (for individuals)

https://dn710108.ca.archive.org/0/items/gov.uscourts.cand.40...

Here is the master complaint for the local government/school district plaintiffs

https://dn710108.ca.archive.org/0/items/gov.uscourts.cand.40...

Here is the short-form complaint for public nusiance (for local governments, school districts)

https://dn710108.ca.archive.org/0/items/gov.uscourts.cand.40...

Hypothetical for discussion

Corporation's lobbyists, or some other circumstances, prevent the establishment of any meaningful regulatory framework that would effectively produce a desired change in the corporation's behaviour

However the threat of thousands of "cash grabs" through private litigation causes the desired change in the corporation's behaviour even in the absence of a regulatory framework

What are the pros and cons

For example, one could argue that the "cash grabs" pose a greater problem than the corporate behaviour that would occur in their absence, or vice versa

[jazzyjackson]

My siblings are better informed, I just wanted to say, settlements don’t get paid unless there’s a risk the plaintiff could win.

[paxys]

Not true at all. In fact settlements mostly happen because it would cost significantly more for a company to go through discovery and argue their case in court regardless of the eventual result. And court systems strongly encourage settlements to save their own time. There an entire industry of patent trolls and sleazy personal injury lawyers in business because of this.

[TitaRusell]

The American jury system is always a wildcard.

A judge can be predicted, it's all about facts and evidence, 12 randos means rolling the dice.

[DFHippie]

I was sued. I was 19 years old working as a painter for a dishonest contractor that paid crap wages. I nosed out of a parking lot after work one day to see around a line of cars turning in and a big sedan ploughed into my little econobox. Several years later, as the statute of limitations was about to run out, the driver of the sedan sued me. My insurance companies first move, before doing any discovery, was to offer her $50k. She said no, so discovery began. It turned out she'd been mis-prescribed an anti-psychotic to create the symptoms she was suing me for having caused. The case was thrown out. The insurance company's legal bills ended up being much less than $50k, but the way it worked was they took a guess at the break even point, offered a bit less than that, and made an offer.

That's not to say this is how it works when Meta is on trial. I just thought it was useful perspective on the nature of settlements.

[qingcharles]

In legal terms they often call this a "nuisance fee", although it's normally much smaller when the defendant thinks there is a 100% chance they will win but just wants to avoid all the costs.

[senderista]

Not sure about that, don't defendants sometimes settle because they don't want the publicity of a trial or don't want their dirty laundry being aired in discovery?

[colejohnson66]

Not always. Sometimes it’s as simple as: settling is cheaper than proving you’re “clear” at trial.

[heavyset_go]

No one wants to go through discovery if they don't have to. These companies are flush with cash and can pay to make that problem go away.

[SpicyLemonZest]

She alleges that social media applications deliberately got her addicted, knowing that might lead to the depression and suicidality she experienced.

[popalchemist]

She's not wrong. The discovery process has shown that such decisions were made by Meta and Zuck himself, knowingly, in the face of research that opposed their goals.