JPML Grants N.Y. Plaintiffs' Motion to Vacate CTO in Social Media MDL
Karen Caldwell, chair of the U.S. Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML), granted plaintiffs Dean and Michelle Nasca’s motion to vacate conditional transfer order CTO-7, said a Thursday order (docket 3047) in Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation. The…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
Nascas’ case against TikTok involved questions of fact common to the actions previously transferred to the Northern District of California and assigned to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, the CTO said. Defendants TikTok and parent company ByteDance opposed the Nascas' motion (see 2308030056). Caldwell’s order follows the recommendation of Magistrate Judge James Wicks last month (see 2307280056) that the court should decline to adopt and apply the doctrine of fraudulent misjoinder in the case. The Nascas’ 16-year-old son, Chase, rode his bike to a railroad intersection in February 2022 in Bayport, New York, walked through an unfenced portion of train tracks and was hit by a Long Island Railroad (LIRR) train after texting a friend, “I’m gonna go.” His parents accessed his TikTok account on his phone after his death and found “thousands” of videos with “highly depressive, violent, self-harm, and suicidal themes accompanied with dark and depressing music,” said the Nascas’ memorandum in support of their motion to vacate. On May 11, 2022, they filed a pro se notice of claim against the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), the LIRR and the town of Islip, New York, alleging the MTA had knowledge of “disproportionate occurrences” of LIRR trains striking pedestrians and vehicles in that portion of track “but failed to take any actions to mitigate or prevent future collisions.” They retained a law firm to prosecute a claim against social media companies and filed a liability claim against TikTok and ByteDance in U.S. District Court in Northern California in October. Plaintiffs don't dispute that their action and the actions in MDL No. 3047 share common factual questions but argue the JPML should allow the Eastern District of New York to rule on their pending motion for remand to state court, said Caldwell's order. She noted the panel said jurisdictional objections generally don’t present an impediment to transfer but cited Wicks’ July 27 recommendation and said it’s “most efficient to allow the Eastern District of New York to review the recommendation and any objections defendants file.” If the Nasca case remains in federal court once all proceedings involving the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation are concluded, “the parties can notify the Panel at that time.”