The bellwether jury trial had been set to begin next week in the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles, according to TechCrunch. Less than a week before Meta's lawyers were due back in that Los Angeles courtroom, the plaintiff accusing the platform of inflicting harm dropped the case, The Verge reported.
The plaintiff is a Florida teenager identified by the initials "R.K.C.," who had sued several social media companies for building addictive platforms, per TechCrunch. TechCrunch also reported that the withdrawal came a day after Snap tentatively settled with R.K.C. in the same lawsuit, leaving Meta as the sole remaining defendant — and that, per Meta's own statement, R.K.C. dropped the case against Meta without receiving any payment.
R.K.C.'s lawyers, Emily Jeffcott and Rahul Ravipudi, framed the move as a calculated exit rather than a loss on the merits: "In light of the overall successful result of the litigation and his concerns about enduring a grueling weekslong trial, he has elected to withdraw his claims against Meta," they said in a statement cited by The Verge.
The Verge reported that TikTok, Snap, and YouTube had previously settled claims brought by R.K.C. for undisclosed amounts — before Meta became the last defendant left standing in the case. Separately, The Verge noted that Meta, TikTok, Snap, and YouTube also settled with a school district that had been set to be the first case in a distinct set of bellwether trials seeking compensation for student mental-health costs allegedly caused by the platforms.
Read together with the R.K.C. lawyers' reference to the "overall successful result of the litigation," these settlements — reported by The Verge — indicate that other defendants resolved their exposure before trial, leaving Meta to contest the case alone.
Both outlets in the evidence pack point to the same track record of courtroom losses preceding R.K.C.'s withdrawal.
| Trial | Defendants | Amount | Reported by |
|---|---|---|---|
| First bellwether trial (Los Angeles) | Meta, Google's YouTube | $6 million (compensatory and punitive, to a single plaintiff) | The Verge |
| Los Angeles jury verdict, March | Meta, Google | $6 million in damages | TechCrunch |
| New Mexico jury verdict | Meta | $375 million penalty | The Verge, TechCrunch |
The Verge reported that in the first bellwether case tried at the courthouse, a jury found Meta and YouTube negligent and ordered them to pay a total of $6 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the single plaintiff. TechCrunch's account of the same period states that in March, a Los Angeles jury "also handed both Meta and Google another defeat, awarding the defendant in that case some $6 million in damages" — the two reports describe the same figure for what appears to be the same trial.
On the New Mexico case, The Verge reported a jury ordered Meta to pay a $375 million penalty, with the state preparing for a next phase of trial seeking structural business changes. TechCrunch added that this was Meta's first courtroom defeat over social media harms, with the company found to have misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and endangered children.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement reported by The Verge: "The claims never held up, and this outcome makes clear that we will not back away from defending ourselves against baseless lawsuits." TechCrunch quoted the same line from Meta's statement.
TechCrunch also reported what Meta had been preparing to argue at trial: that R.K.C. had allegedly used his Facebook and Instagram accounts for only minutes per day on average, and that most of his accounts had reportedly been created after he hired a lawyer.
The R.K.C. case was set to be the second in a set of bellwether trials meant to test legal arguments that social media companies broke the law by creating features that hooked and harmed teens, according to The Verge.
The Verge reported that seven more bellwether cases remain on deck in the California state courthouse in Los Angeles, with a separate set of cases pending in a federal court in Oakland. Beyond those, The Verge reported that Meta is still set to face claims brought by state attorneys general in federal court next month, alleging that it illegally misled the public about harmful and allegedly addictive features.
R.K.C.'s withdrawal, coming a day after Snap's tentative settlement and without any payment to the plaintiff per Meta's own account, ends Meta's role in this specific case without a trial verdict either way. But the case sat inside a much larger sequence: it was only the second of a planned series of bellwether trials, and Meta had already lost the first ($6 million, corroborated by both The Verge and TechCrunch) and the New Mexico case ($375 million, also corroborated by both outlets) before this withdrawal occurred. With seven more Los Angeles bellwether cases, a separate Oakland federal docket, and a state attorneys general lawsuit due next month, the R.K.C. dismissal removes one case from Meta's docket without addressing the broader set of claims still pending against the company.
No. According to Meta's own statement, reported by TechCrunch, the plaintiff chose to drop his case against Meta without receiving any payment.
A New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay a $375 million penalty, as reported by both The Verge and TechCrunch, with the state preparing for a further trial phase seeking structural business changes.
The Verge reported that seven more bellwether cases remain pending in the Los Angeles state courthouse, plus a separate set of cases in federal court in Oakland.
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