Jurisdictional Issues No Impediment to Transfer, Says TikTok in Social Media Case
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation “repeatedly rejected” plaintiffs’ primary basis to vacate conditional transfer order 7 (CTO-7) -- that the transferor court should be allowed to rule on questions of fraudulent misjoinder and remand -- “as an insufficient basis to vacate a conditional transfer order.” So said ByteDance Friday, opposing (docket MDL 3047) in U.S. District Court for Northern California plaintiffs Dean Nasca and Michelle Nasca’s May motion to vacate CTO-7 in Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury.
The Panel already rejected a similar argument in the same MDL in February, when finalizing transfer of another matter, Youngers, to the MDL court, said ByteDance. The TikTok parent company noted the panel said jurisdictional objections “generally do not present an impediment to transfer," and the statutory factors for transfer in the Nasca case “are clearly met.” Plaintiffs identified “no valid basis” to vacate CTO-7, so the panel should deny the Nascas’ motion and finalize the transfer of the action to the MDL in Oakland, it said.
The Nascas brought their case against ByteDance in October, less than two weeks after the MDL 3047 was formed. They brought their case directly before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, asserting claims for strict liability, negligence, and other theories about the design and operation of TikTok after the suicide of their son, Chase, who had “thousands” of videos with “highly depressive, violent, self-harm, and suicidal themes accompanied with dark and depressing music” on his phone when he died in February 2022.
The Nascas voluntarily dismissed that lawsuit from the MDL in March, it noted. ByteDance removed the lawsuit from New York State Supreme Court in Suffolk County to U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Central Islip April 13 (see 2304280037). On the same day, it filed a second notice of potential tag-along action with MDL No. 3047. The Nascas’ subsequently filed a motion to vacate CTO-7, and the Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC) filed a notice of opposition to CTO-7, also in April.
About a year earlier, the Nascas filed a pro se notice of claim against the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the Long Island Railroad and the town of Islip, New York, where Chase was killed by a moving train. The Nascas alleged 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.” In October, Chase's parents filed the liability claim against TikTok in U.S. District Court in Northern California.
Matthew Bergman, an attorney with the SMVLC, learned of the Nascas’ claim against the MTA and said the MTA’s failure to fence off the section of track where Chase died is actionable under New York law due to prior suicides at the same location. He also said the statute of limitations for the parents to file a claim against the MTA would end last month. Because the Nascas and the MTA are New York residents, the plaintiffs couldn't assert diversity jurisdiction in their pending federal claim.
As a result, the only way for the Nascas to prosecute their claims against TikTok and the MTA before the statute of limitation expired was to dismiss the federal action and proceed against both sets of defendants in New York state court (see 2305160078). They voluntarily dismissed their federal action against TikTok in March and later that month filed an instant action in Suffolk County Supreme Court with similar allegations. TikTok removed the action in April, arguing the defendants “are distinct, and the claims cannot be properly joined together” and then filed a notice of potential tag-along actions, including to MDL No. 3047. The MDL also names Facebook and Instagram parent Meta, Snap and Google as defendants.