TikTok Wants JPML to Hear Objections Before It Remands Social Media Case to N.Y. Court

for Eastern New York remand Nasca v. ByteDance to Suffolk County Supreme Court. Plaintiffs’ Dean and Michelle Nasca, whose son died after being hit by a Long Island Railroad (LIRR) train after the youth was fed numerous suicide-by-train videos on TikTok, said the case should be remanded from Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation because TikTok “failed to establish complete diversity since there was no fraudulent misjoinder.” Wicks recommended the court decline to adopt and apply the doctrine of fraudulent misjoinder in the case, saying the claims against both the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the LIRR, and TikTok “are inextricably linked to Chase Nasca’s death.” Common questions of law and fact “exist as to all Defendants in this case,” Wicks said. In its response, TikTok said neither the Nasca’s notice nor Wicks’ recommendations affect the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation’s (JPML) jurisdiction and right to rule on transfer. The JPML “already heard the issue of transfer” July 27 “and previously has rejected similar requests to oppose/delay transfer” in the MDL, it said. The magistrate’s recommendations aren’t final because defendants have until Aug. 10 to file objections, “which they intend to do,” and those objections will be heard and considered by the district court before any final ruling, said the response. “This non-final status and indeterminate timing in EDNY is further reason for the JPML to transfer to the MDL court, which is better positioned to opine on ‘common questions of fact’ as to its own MDL and issue consistent decisions rather than piecemeal rulings in individual courts,” it said.