GoKawiilRelatives of victims walk out of the Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday after jurors handed down a decision finding Instagram and YouTube liable for harms the apps allegedly caused to children.
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After a grueling seven weeks of court proceedings and more than 40 hours of tense deliberations across nine days in one of the country’s most closely watched civil trials, jurors handed down a landmark decision in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday, finding Instagram and YouTube responsible for the suffering of a Chico, Calif., woman who charged the platforms were built to addict young users.
Kaley G.M., the 20-year-old plaintiff, who testified in February, arrived in court just before 10 a.m. She remained stoic as the verdict, an award of $3 million and a decision warranting additional punitive damages were read out. A companion fought back tears, her chin quivering. Several observers wept silently despite Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl’s repeated warning not to respond.
“We need to have no reaction to the jury’s verdict — no crying out, no reactions, no disturbance,” Kuhl warned. “If there is we will have to have you removed from the courtroom, and we sure don’t want to have to do that.”
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Less than two hours after it delivered its initial verdict, the jury returned to award $2.1 million in punitive damages against Meta and $900,000 against Google, bringing the total judgment against the companies to $6 million combined.
Attorneys for Snapchat and TikTok also appeared in court Wednesday morning to hear the decision. The two platforms settled with Kaley out of court for undisclosed sums before the trial.
“We respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,” a spokesperson for Instagram’s parent company, Meta, said.
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