Second Social Media Addiction Trial Opens in Los Angeles: Meta and Snap Face the Jury

Who is on trial, and who settled out

Three plaintiffs were set for October; two reached trial. S.J., a 16-year-old from Illinois, and K.D.B., an 18-year-old from Mississippi, sued in 2023 and are bellwether plaintiffs in California's coordinated proceeding, test cases picked to show how juries respond to the claims in more than 3,000 lawsuits gathered in the Los Angeles court. The third, P.M.Y., resolved her claims against TikTok in August and dismissed the rest, with no payment from Meta reported. Judge Kuhl consolidated S.J. and K.D.B. into a single trial in late August over Meta's objection that two plaintiffs would confuse a jury.

The defendant list then shrank. TikTok settled with both plaintiffs in early August, as it did before the K.G.M. and R.K.C. trials. Google's YouTube settled with both on September 25, on undisclosed terms, according to the Daily Journal. And before trial, S.J. settled with Meta, Reuters reported, so the jury will hear both plaintiffs' claims against Snap and only K.D.B.'s claims against Meta. As far as has been reported, it is Meta's first settlement with a California personal-injury bellwether plaintiff: Meta went to verdict in K.G.M., R.K.C. dismissed his claims against Meta without a payment, and P.M.Y. dropped hers with no Meta payment reported. Snap, which settled with both earlier California bellwether plaintiffs before their trials, is a trial defendant for the first time, AFP reported.

What the jury is being asked to decide

As in K.G.M., the case is about how the apps were designed rather than any particular post. The plaintiffs say they began using YouTube as young as 3 or 4 and other platforms around 9, and that features like autoplay and infinite scroll drove compulsive use that led to depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, Reuters reported. Both described staying up for hours scrolling and losing focus in class. They seek unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Meta and Snap deny the claims. "A young person's mental health is shaped by many factors, as the evidence in this trial will show," a Meta spokesperson said, adding that the plaintiff used TikTok far more than Instagram or Facebook. A Snap spokesperson said Snapchat differs from traditional social media because it does not open to a feed, and that "these allegations fundamentally misrepresent their experiences on Snapchat and how our platform was designed." Meta and Snap have also asked Judge Kuhl to try the two cases separately, arguing that a joint trial would mix up the evidence for jurors; she had not ruled as of October 28.

Much of the pretrial fighting was about what the jury may hear: whether lawyer advertising prompted the families to sue, K.D.B.'s journals, S.J.'s apparent use of ChatGPT, and what Meta may tell jurors about its later safety changes and its settlement with the states if the case reaches a punitive damages phase. At the September 29 conference Judge Kuhl rejected a broader defense request to reopen the plaintiffs' depositions, the Daily Journal reported. No ruling on the lawyer-advertising request has been reported.

The witnesses to watch

Judge Kuhl rejected Meta's bid to keep Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri off the stand; both testified in K.G.M. Under a tentative schedule, Zuckerberg is expected on November 10 and Mosseri on November 19, and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is also expected, the Daily Journal reported. The judge allowed the parties to arrange video testimony for the company executives. We will add each appearance to the trial log after it happens.

How it fits the larger litigation

This is a California state-court trial, separate from the federal MDL, but the two move together. The federal MDL-3047 held 3,824 pending cases in the October 2026 JPML report, and its first school-district bellwether trials (Tucson Unified and Charleston County, tried one after the other) begin with jury selection on February 3, 2027. In California, the next bellwether group (the Loach, Kelly, and I.P. cases) is set for March 16, 2027, and a further trial is reported for August 6, 2027. Meta's August settlement with the state attorneys general, up to roughly $17 billion paid to the states, expressly preserved personal-injury and school-district claims like these.

What it means for families with a claim

A bellwether is a test case, not a deadline. Whatever this jury decides, every other family's case continues on its own track, and new cases are filed every month. A plaintiff verdict would strengthen claimants' hand in settlement talks; a defense verdict would do the opposite. Neither would set what any other case is worth, and there is still no global settlement or per-person payout in this litigation.

This is general litigation reporting, not legal advice. Filing deadlines are set by state law, vary widely, and for minors are often paused until adulthood but do run. Anyone weighing a claim should speak with a licensed attorney about their own situation. Our step-by-step filing guide explains how the process works.