Schools & AGs Add To A Multi-Front Litigation
For many outside the litigation, the social media cases are still viewed primarily through the lens of individual families and children. But behind the scenes, another front in the battle is building: school district and state actions that seek to hold platforms accountable for broader societal costs.
According to Emmie Paulos, a shareholder with Levin Papantonio, the strategy is not accidental. Rather than allowing one category of cases to move forward in isolation, the structure of the litigation itself is creating pressure from multiple directions simultaneously. Paulos was appointed as a member of the Plaintiff Steering Committee in In re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction / Personal Injury Product Liability Litigation, MDL 3047.
“ I think the pressure is coming from all angles, and I think that’ s the strategy of the court,” Paulos explained.“ The decision was made that, since one proceeding is focusing on the individual cases, to start with the school districts and AG cases so that all of the cases are being tried somewhat congruently, at the same time. I think that added pressure to the defendants, because all of those other cases are coinciding, back-to-back. I think that definitely creates momentum in the litigation.”
That pressure has already produced tangible results in some school district cases. In May, Meta agreed to settle claims brought by Kentucky’ s Breathitt County School District, which alleged the company contributed to a youth mental health crisis that forced schools to devote additional resources to student behavioral and emotional health needs. The settlement followed agreements reached earlier that same week with TikTok, Snap, and YouTube, leaving Meta as the final remaining defendant in the case.
The school cases themselves introduce a different legal framework than traditional injury claims. Instead of focusing on harm to a single person, they borrow concepts seen in earlier mass torts involving opioids and youth vaping litigation.
Paulos explained that while the legal theories differ, the central narrative remains the same.“ They’ re definitely different theories of liability but still going back to the focus of the core theme, which is the addictive nature of social media,” she said.“ They are more in line with what you saw happen in opioids and what you saw in Juul— essentially, it’ s public nuisance.”
Under that theory, school districts argue that the alleged harm extends far beyond individual users and into the broader school environment itself. Districts contend they have been forced to absorb the fallout associated with compulsive social media use by diverting resources toward additional counselors, student interventions, staff training, and behavioral support systems. Like the opioid and youth vaping litigation before it, the argument is that the costs of an alleged public health problem have shifted onto institutions that never created it but are now left managing its consequences.
That broader accountability effort recently gained another significant data point. In March 2026, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez secured what the New Mexico Department of Justice called a landmark verdict against Meta, with a jury finding the company liable for misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms and endangering children. The State of New Mexico v. Meta Platforms, Inc trial resulted in $ 375 million in civil penalties for violating New Mexico’ s consumer protection laws.
In responding to the California verdict that followed, Torrez suggested the outcomes reflected a larger shift: courts and juries are increasingly willing to examine not only harms associated with social media platforms, but also the decisions behind how those products are designed and operated.
The litigation also continues to turn on the same question that helped crack open Section 230 protections: whether social media platforms should be viewed simply as places where content exists or as products designed to drive compulsive behavior.
Paulos said that explaining this distinction to juries requires creating a complete narrative through science, internal company records, and evidence about how platforms function.
“ It’ s setting the stage of how addiction works and making that clear to the jury from the onset— having an expert explain the addiction process— then, you have internal documents that support that, and then you have testimony that corroborates that. I think that creates a full circle of understanding.”
Perhaps most striking, she notes that some of the companies’ own documents may be doing part of the plaintiffs’ work for them.
“ They use the word addiction... They use the word addict.”
For trial lawyers watching the litigation unfold, the lesson may be larger than any single case or verdict. The fight over social media appears increasingly less like a series of isolated lawsuits and more like a coordinated pressure campaign unfolding in courtrooms, school systems, and state actions all at once.
The Trial Lawyer 73