This Order addresses the first wave of legal arguments stemming from the filing, on behalf of children and adolescents, of hundreds of individual cases across the United States against five companies operating some of the world’s most used social media platforms: Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Google’s YouTube, ByteDance’s TikTok, and Snapchat. Notably, this multi-district litigation (“MDL”) encompasses, in addition to individual suits, over 140 actions brought on behalf of school districts and actions filed jointly by over thirty state Attorneys General. While plaintiffs’ complaint asserts eighteen claims against defendants, this Order addresses only defendants’ motions to dismiss the individual plaintiffs’ five priority claims.
In your social media posts, please define MDL and other acronyms. We aren’t all attorneys.
I honor your advocacy on behalf of those harmed by sexual abuse, which helps many.
An “MDL” is a ‘multi-district litigation’ in which numerous federal cases filed in courts across the county are consolidated before one judge to decide pre-trial issues common to all the cases. In principle, once these pre-trial issues are decided, the cases are returned to their originating federal courts for trial. In practice, most MDLs get resolved at the pre-trial stage. Although MDLs are similar to class action lawsuits in that they are a consolidated proceeding, the individual cases remain just that–individual claims on behalf of individual clients. There is no single class representative nor representation by one law firm. In an MDL, a committee of individual lawyers operate as an ad hoc law firm to represent the interests of the plaintiffs in the litigation. James R. Marsh was appointed to serve as a Plaintiffs Liaison Counsel in the Social Media MDL.