PHILADELPHIA - A social media giant says a wrongful death lawsuit against it and several others over the suicide of a sextortion victim will be grouped with others in California, while the plaintiff wants it sent back to the Philadelphia state court in which it was first filed.
The case, filed Dec. 23 in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, concerns John Michael Sullivan, a student at Kutztown University who fell prey to Nigerian scammers on Instagram.
After tricking Sullivan into sending sexually explicit photos on Instagram and Snapchat, they then demanded thousands of dollars with the warning they would release the pictures to Kutztown's board.
Sullivan committed suicide in 2023 by stepping in front of a Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority train. He was 20 years old.
The lawsuit brought by his father says social media companies design their apps to be addictive in order to replace physical human interactions. This leads to feelings of isolation, loneliness and fear, the suit says.
"The addictive nature of the applications and platforms is especially damaging for teens and young people," it adds.
"MRI brain studies show that students who use social media more frequently had increased activation points on their brain, 'possibly making them more prone to peer feedback and hypersensitivity and possibly leading to changes in impulse control and regulation,' according to ABC News chief medical correspondence Dr. Jennifer Ashton."
Those addicted to social media are at a high risk of being tricked into sextortion, the suit says. Sullivan believed he was talking to a young woman but ended up paying criminals about $2,800 to keep his photos private.
When he could send no more, the criminals threatened to physically harm him and his family and send the pics to his family, friends and school. His suicide was the "direct consequence of the horrible pressure, negative emotions, impulsive decision making, and the impact on the social development, emotions, mind and psyche of the plaintiff's decedent as a result of the design of the social media defendants' algorithms and addictive intention and design," the suit says.
Thousands of lawsuits make similar claims, and many are consolidated in a multidistrict litigation proceeding in California federal court. School districts, state attorneys general and personal injury plaintiffs like Sullivan's father are among those pursuing claims there.
So Meta removed Sullivan's case to federal court to prepare to seek transfer to that MDL, where discovery issues in these cases are done more efficiently than if companies were forced to fight cases one-by-one.
But Sullivan's father named several local companies in his Pennsylvania case and wants it sent back to the local court. He sued SEPTA, plus the owners of property around the train tracks through which his son travelled to get to the train tracks.
These defendants were added to unfairly keep the case in state court, Meta argues, in a process called fraudulent misjoinder.
Defendants can move lawsuits to federal court when there is diversity of jurisdictions among the parties, but that is complicated when local defendants are named, like they are in Sullivan's case.
Meta wants a stay on any ruling until the Judicial Panel on MDL decides whether to send the Sullivan case to California.
"(A) stay would promote judicial economy, and therefore serve the public interest, because Plaintiff's motion (to remand) implicates fact-specific questions about the proper makeup of the MDL that would be best addressed by the MDL court itself," Meta said Feb. 24.
The plaintiffs want Judge Kelly Hodge to go ahead and rule on whether the case should be in federal or state court, saying the Third Circuit has already rejected the fraudulent-misjoinder doctrine alleged here.
They called Meta's move to federal court "improper."
"The public has a significant interest in the consistent application of the law in their forum district," plaintiff lawyers said.
"Defendant Meta chose to conduct business in this district, and offer their social media applications to th plaintiff's decedent in this district. He was harmed as a result of its use when he was sexually extorted in this district, died in this district, and filed a lawsuit in the state court in this district against numerous defendants from this district...."