School Districts in Fla., Ky. Bring Public Nuisance Claims vs. Social Media

Two school districts in Kentucky filed public nuisance lawsuits against the top social media platforms Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Eastern Kentucky, and two Florida school districts filed a combined public nuisance and negligence suit in Superior Court of California in Los Angeles Tuesday.

Law firms in three cases are also representing school districts in existing lawsuits against platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. More than 130 such social media cases are part of multidistrict litigation in U.S. District Court in Northern California alleging social media platforms are responsible for an increase in mental health issues among American youth.

Complaints in the Menifee County (docket 5:23-cv-00111) and Franklin County (docket 3:23-cv-00025) school districts in Kentucky, filed by Hendy Johnson, are virtually identical, except for district details. Franklin County School District, based in Frankfort, has over 6,100 students in 16 schools; Menifee County Public Schools, based in Frenchburg, has about 900 students in three schools. The suits reference research citing a “mental health crisis,” involving kids’ addiction to social media, an association between social media use and rising rates of depression and suicide rates in adolescents, and a relationship between social media use and cyberbullying, eating disorders and sleep deprivation.

Social media interactions are different from in-person ones because they're often permanent and public, said the complaints, citing an August American Psychological Association article saying in a regular conversation, “you don’t know if the other person liked it, or if anyone else liked it,” but on social media platforms, kids, their friends and strangers can “publicly deliver or withhold social rewards in the form of likes, comments, views and follows.” Adults are generally better equipped to deal with their emotional responses to social media feedback, but adolescents are in a period of “personal and social identity formation” that’s now largely “reliant on social media” and are at a “greater risk of developing mental disorder," it said.

The Kentucky schools are struggling to provide students with mental health services due to excessive social media use, the complaints allege. They cite a 2022-2023 U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences report noting increases in student absenteeism vs. 2020-2021, plus increased acts of vandalism. Some 41% of public schools have had to add staff to focus on student mental health, said the report. The school districts require “significantly greater and long-term funding to address the nuisance Defendants have created.”

The Kentucky school districts seek an order that defendants are jointly and severally liable, an order to abate the public nuisance and an injunction ordering them to stop engaging in further actions contributing to public nuisance. They seek equitable relief to fund prevention education and treatment; an award of actual, compensatory and statutory damages; and reasonable attorneys’ fees and legal costs.

In the Florida case, filed by law firms Cutter Law and Beasley Allen, Liberty County School District in Bristol, with 1,200 students in nine schools, and Bay District Schools in Panama City, with over 25,000 students, have been “directly impacted” by the mental health crisis caused by social media, said the complaint (docket 23ST-cv-08004). At least 191,000 children in Florida have major depression, the complaint said, citing 2023 data from the Hopeful Futures Campaign.

Among the increased costs for both Florida school districts due to social media's harmful impact are the need to hire more mental health and disciplinary personnel, develop more mental health resources, train teachers, address property damage arising from students “acting out,” investigate and respond to threats made over social media and update school handbooks and policies to address social media use, the complaint said.

Plaintiffs seek an order that defendants are jointly and severally liable; an order to abate the public nuisance; that defendants are enjoined from engaging in further actions; and awards of equitable relief to fund prevention education and addiction treatment. They also seek awards of actual, compensatory, punitive and statutory damages, plus reasonable attorneys’ fees and legal costs.