• YouTube filed a notice of appeal Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, challenging a March jury verdict that assigned negligence to the company in a case brought by a 20-year-old plaintiff.
  • The jury awarded the plaintiff, identified as Kaley, $3 million in damages and recommended an additional $3 million in punitive damages.
  • Meta, the other defendant, filed its own appeal less than a week earlier, after the trial judge denied both companies’ motions for a new trial in early June.
  • YouTube argued during the trial that it is not a social media platform and that federal law should shield it from liability for content posted by third parties.
  • The plaintiff’s legal team expects the appellate court to affirm the verdict, lead attorney Mark Lanier said, while a Google spokesperson described the appeals as standard motions to advance the case.

Jury assigned negligence to Google-owned YouTube and Meta in case brought by a 20-year-old plaintiff

Lawyers for YouTube filed the notice of appeal Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Meta, which was also a defendant in the case, filed its own notice of appeal less than a week earlier. Both companies are challenging a March jury verdict that found negligence by Google-owned YouTube and Meta was a substantial factor in causing harm to the plaintiff, who said she became addicted to social media as a child and that it worsened her mental health.

The jury awarded Kaley $3 million in damages and recommended an additional $3 million in punitive damages. Her lead attorney, Mark Lanier, said in a statement last week that Kaley’s legal team expects the appellate court to “continue the careful application of the law to this case, affirming the verdict of the trial court.”

José Castañeda, a spokesperson for Google, said in a statement last week that YouTube was planning to appeal and described the filings as “standard motions for this case to move forward.”

Meta and Google each filed post-trial motions seeking a new trial. The trial judge, Carolyn B. Kuhl, denied those motions in early June, clearing the way for the appeals.

During the five-week trial, one of YouTube’s core arguments was that its platform, which offers video sharing and streaming, is not a social media platform. Lawyers for both YouTube and Meta also consistently raised questions about whether the evidence and arguments encroached on legal protections for tech companies under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields them from legal responsibility for content posted by third parties. The plaintiff’s lawyers instead focused on design features such as autoplay that they argued could lead to more long-lasting, less intentional use of the platforms.

Kaley’s case was a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, and the verdict is expected to influence the outcome of thousands of similar lawsuits accusing social media companies of causing harm to minors. TikTok and Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. were initially named as defendants in the case but each settled for undisclosed sums before the trial began. The arguments related to the YouTube and Meta appeals are expected to be laid out in later court filings.