Competing Bellwether Trial Schedules Submitted for Social Media Addiction Lawsuits

Social media platforms are pushing for the first bellwether trial to come from a small school district, warning that any verdict awarded to a larger district will not help gauge potential social media addiction settlement payouts.

School districts nationwide and major internet platforms like TikTok and YouTube want a federal judge to decide which social media addiction lawsuits should be the first to go before a jury, after failing to come to an agreement themselves.

The platforms, which include Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, as well as others, currently face more than 1,800 lawsuits that have been consolidated into a federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Northern District of California.

These lawsuits accuse the companies of designing their platforms to maximize engagement by using data collection, recommendation algorithms and other features that fuel compulsive use among children, leading to addiction and mental health issues.

While families are seeking compensation for individual harms like anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation, school districts are pursuing reimbursement for the growing costs of responding to what they call a youth mental health crisis driven by social media addiction. Those costs include counseling, crisis intervention and special education services.

Late last month, Judge Rogers announced that six different school district claims would be the first teen social media addiction lawsuits to go to trial. These “bellwether” early test cases will give the parties and the court a chance to see how juries respond to evidence and testimony likely to be repeated throughout the litigation.

The judge called for plaintiffs and defendants to submit a proposed sequence for the school district social media addiction trials. However, in an agenda and joint statement (PDF) released on September 12, the parties announced that they had failed to come to an agreement.

Plaintiffs want a lawsuit filed by the Tucson school district to be the first to go to trial, arguing that it is the only case that is trial ready, is the most representative case and would provide the parties with the most guidance, thus fulfilling the role of a bellwether trial. Part of that is because the lawsuit includes claims of public nuisance, which is not present in all school district social media addiction lawsuits.

“Like nearly 80% of the 1,000+ SD cases in this MDL, Tucson asserts both negligence and public nuisance claims, ensuring that the Court and the parties receive meaningful guidance on abatement and other remedies central to resolution.”

– SD plaintiffs statement, Agenda and Joint Statement

Plaintiffs argue that the defendants’ choice of the Irvington school district for the first trial is inappropriate because it lacks key claims and is less prepared than the Tucson case. Irvington is also the smallest of the six school districts selected for bellwether trials, with 7,982 students compared to Tucson’s 39,927.

The social media platforms argued that most of the more than 1,000 school districts with pending complaints are smaller in size, at or around 2,000 students, and they would consider any result from a bellwether trial involving Tucson and any other large district as an outlier.

The outcomes of these bellwether trials will not be binding on the other claims in the MDL, but they will be closely watched to see how the juries weigh evidence and testimony that would likely be repeated throughout the litigation. The results may have a substantial impact on any social media addiction settlement negotiations to resolve the litigation in the coming years.

However, the first trial over claims of social media addiction is scheduled to be held in California state court, which is expected to begin on November 24, 2025. The federal bellwether trials are not expected to begin until late 2026.

The next federal case management conference is scheduled for September 19.

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