Magistrate Judge Says Federal Court Should Remand Social Media Case to State Court

The U.S. District Court for Eastern New York should remand a negligence lawsuit to Suffolk County Supreme Court, recommended U.S. Magistrate Judge James Wicks in a Thursday report (docket 2:23-cv-02786), submitted as supplemental information by the Social Media Victims Law Center before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

Defendant TikTok removed the action from the New York state court to federal court in April (see 2304280037), citing the series of lawsuits in the Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation MDL in U.S. District Court for Northern California. It contended the claim against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) was “completely unrelated” to the TikTok claims and the MTA defendants were fraudulently misjoined.

TikTok maintains the federal court has diversity subject-matter jurisdiction based on plaintiffs Dean and Michelle Nasca’s fraudulent misjoinder of defendants TikTok and the MTA, which owns the Long Island Railroad. The Nascas asserted a claim for joint and several liability against both defendants over the suicide of their teenage son, Chase, who died in 2022 after viewing suicide-related TikTok videos and was struck and killed by a Long Island Railroad train in a location that was the site of previous deaths.

The Nascas’ motion for remand is based on the contention that TikTok failed to establish complete diversity since there was no fraudulent misjoinder. Defendants TikTok, the MTA and the Town of Islip, New York, “strenuously oppose” the motion, asserting fraudulent misjoinder exists and therefore the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction.

The Nascas first filed a pro se notice of claim against the MTA and Islip in May 2022, then retained counsel and filed their case against TikTok in the Northern District of California, joining about 200 other cases against social media companies. When the counsel learned of the pro se claims, he advised the Nascas to dismiss their claims and then brought suit in Suffolk County Supreme Court, adding the MTA defendants, said the filing.

Plaintiffs allege dismissing their California claims was necessary because the statute of limitations for them to file a claim against the MTA would soon expire and the only way to sue both the MTA and TikTok would be to sue in state court since diversity was not met between the MTA and plaintiffs alone, Wicks' filing said. They sued TikTok under the same causes of action as in the California suit -- for product liability, negligence, unjust enrichment, and invasion of privacy -- and sued the MTA and Islip for negligence. Common claims among all defendants are wrongful death and loss of services.

In oral argument this month, the Nascas argued the court should decline to adopt defendants’ position on fraudulent misjoinder, saying it would be an improper expansion of federal jurisdiction. TikTok opposed their motion, because 1) the MDL will address whether the case should be remanded, 2) it disagrees that fraudulent misjoinder has been applied in other federal courts and 3) the defendants were misjoined because they had no connection to each other. TikTok asked the court to await the MDL’s decision on jurisdiction or to deny the motion to remand and sever the claims against the MTA vs. those against it.

Islip requested in June that the court deny the Nascas’ motion to remand, saying it was fraudulently misjoined and there was nothing in common between the allegations against it and TikTok because the complaint consists of mental health harms caused by use of online services. That contrasts with the claims made against the MTA and Islip for negligence in failure to fence off the train track, said Wicks' filing.

TikTok removed the case based on fraudulent misjoinder, then filed it with other actions before the MDL and a conditional transfer order was issued for potential transfer of the case to the Northern District of California. The Nascas filed a notice of opposition to the transfer and filed a motion to vacate the order (see 2305160078).

Wicks recommended Thursday that the court decline to adopt and apply the doctrine of fraudulent misjoinder in the case, saying the claims against both the MTA and TikTok “are inextricably linked to Chase Nasca’s death.” Common questions of law and fact “exist as to all Defendants in this case.”

Contrary to defendants’ assertion there's no logical relationship between them, “the record supports that their acts are connected because the actions of both TikTok and MTA, as a matter of pleading, arguably contributed to Nasca’s death,” said Wicks. If the TikTok algorithm hadn’t shown Chase videos about suicide by train and “had the MTA not left the fence open, especially when MTA was on notice of individuals getting struck by trains in unfenced areas, creating the opportunity for an individual to commit suicide, Chase would not have been able to follow through with the act.”