Northwest ISD joins multi-district lawsuit aimed at social media companies

The Northwest ISD board voted unanimously May 19 to join several school districts across the state in litigation efforts to recover expenses sustained by the district related to youth social media usage and addiction.

The details

According to district documents, on Oct. 11, 2022, the Federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation created MDL No. 3047 involving defendants Meta Platforms, Inc., Instagram LLC, Snap, Inc., TikTok, Inc., ByteDance, Inc., YouTube LLC, Google LLC, and Alphabet Inc. The plaintiffs allege:

• The defendants’ social media platforms are defective products that, in turn, cause various damages
• The tech firms knew their product was having a negative effect on the mental health of the nation’s youth
• The firms proceeded to reap large profits in conscious disregard for the harms occurring

School districts are suing to recoup expenses for implementing student technology separation measures, increased mental health counseling and educating students with limitations resulting from social media use, according to district documents.

The backstory

According to previous Community Impact reporting, the other DFW school districts that have already joined the lawsuit include Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, Richardson ISD, Dallas ISD and Frisco ISD.

According to NISD documents, the district will be represented by Eiland & Bonnin, PC; and O’Hanlon, Demerath & Castillo, PC on a contingency basis.

“There are no up-front or out-of-pocket costs to join the litigation,” district documents state. “If there is no recovery, there are no costs to the district.”

Eiland & Bonnin, PC has worked in high-profile litigations such as the Grand Las Vegas mass shooting and the BP Texas City refinery explosion.

O’Hanlon, Demerath & Castillo, PC has litigated statewide education cases such as the No Pass No Play law. Kevin O’Hanlon founded the firm in 1992 after serving as general counsel for the Texas Education Agency.