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…
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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.