Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / Texas AG Targets Roblox and Tylenol as Social Media and Uber Cases Advance

Transcript

Texas AG Targets Roblox and Tylenol as Social Media and Uber Cases Advance · The Jon and Marc Podcast

• 0:09
  Welcome back to Tort Talk. Here we are with Joe Fantini.
• 0:12
  I'm John Robinson. Mark is on the road this week,
• 0:14
  so it's just Joe and I, but we have a lot of information to
• 0:17
  update you on as we meet the midway part of Q42025.
• 0:23
  We're going to talk a lot about the platforms, the apps today,
• 0:26
  as well as some updates on Tylenol as well.
• 0:28
  Let's get started talking about social media addiction, with the
• 0:31
  first trial scheduled in Los Angeles Superior Court at the
• 0:34
  end of January 2026. Where does that stand?
• 0:37
  What's the latest with social media addiction litigation, Joe?
• 0:39
  One of the litigations that everybody's keeping an eye on
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  and it looks like we're moving forward with the trial date.
• 0:45
  I believe it's going to be January 27th.
• 0:48
  We have parallel state court action going also while we have
• 0:52
  the MDL. So this case, the first trial
• 0:54
  case, is going to be in state court.
• 0:56
  And then it looks like we're locked in, in the MDL for the
• 0:59
  first trial there in April. So hopefully, before the
• 1:03
  midpoint of 2026, we could have two potentially 3 trials, one in
• 1:08
  the state court action and then one in the MDL.
• 1:11
  This will really give us a blueprint of what's going to
• 1:14
  happen in these cases, these online platform cases that seem
• 1:17
  to be all the rage now. And really, most of the
• 1:20
  attention in the mass tort space is on.
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  So we'll keep you guys updated as we get towards that trial.
• 1:25
  But it definitely seems like it's going forward.
• 1:28
  We've gotten some good rulings on X experts, so it would be
• 1:31
  very interesting to see how that case turns out.
• 1:33
  Are these against Facebook? Are they TikTok?
• 1:36
  YouTube. Yeah.
• 1:37
  So these initial cases, the social media addiction cases is
• 1:41
  kind of against the big tech like you're saying.
• 1:43
  So it's TikTok, it's Google, it's Facebook.
• 1:46
  Those are the defendants in this litigation, which is separate
• 1:49
  and different from some of the other ones we'll probably talk
• 1:52
  about down the road, like the online gambling addiction that
• 1:55
  we're seeing pop up beer. The online gambling addiction is
• 1:58
  is fairly new. We a bit of buzz about it at
• 2:02
  MTMP. What do you know about where
• 2:03
  those currently stand? Yeah.
• 2:05
  So that's a new litigation. Like you said, there's only been
• 2:07
  a couple lawsuits filed to date. We don't have a pending motion
• 2:11
  before the JPML for consolidation.
• 2:14
  But basically, it seems like there's going to be tears for
• 2:17
  the different levels of the potential plaintiffs depending
• 2:21
  upon how much they were gambling and the debt that they owe.
• 2:24
  Basically, again, we're alleging that these platforms are
• 2:27
  addictive. Their algorithm makes people
• 2:29
  stay on and they're wager money that they're not able to afford
• 2:33
  and pay and not give adequate warnings that this could happen.
• 2:36
  So I think ultimately probably midpoint of 26, we'll see MDL
• 2:42
  form for this online gambling addiction, which is one that
• 2:45
  popped up and everybody was talking about a mass toward me.
• 2:48
  Perfect. And another one that everyone
• 2:50
  was talking about at MTMP was Roblox.
• 2:52
  We've talked before about how terrible these cases are and
• 2:54
  cases are building. There could be an MDL form
• 2:57
  following the JPML hearing in December.
• 2:59
  We saw this this week that the Texas AG sued Roblox alleging
• 3:03
  the gaming platform deceive parents of potential dangers of
• 3:06
  the platform. You tell us where we're at in
• 3:09
  this litigation, in the timeline, and what things look
• 3:11
  like as we reach the end of the year.
• 3:13
  Yeah, the more information comes out, the worse it is.
• 3:15
  I saw a stat that it was saying that 40% of the users on Roblox
• 3:20
  are under the age of 13. So we've seen a number of
• 3:23
  lawsuits, we're up to about 50 filed and these are horrible
• 3:27
  allegations. It's basically alleging that
• 3:29
  these minors are on these platforms, the parents don't
• 3:32
  really know what's on there or what the kids are doing.
• 3:35
  And then they're developing these relationships with adults
• 3:38
  who are creating false accounts. They're getting them to either
• 3:42
  solicit and send inappropriate pictures or then ultimately some
• 3:46
  of them are meeting up in person.
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  And then ultimately these minors are being abused.
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  So horrible, horrible cases. These are really serious.
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  And like you mentioned, we have the petition pending before the
• 3:57
  JPML in early December. Typically what what we see is
• 4:00
  about 10 days or so after the hearing, we get a ruling.
• 4:03
  We're moving to have the cases sent to District Court in
• 4:07
  California. The defendants are trying to
• 4:09
  have it sent elsewhere. It looks like right now it's
• 4:12
  pointed towards that direction. So I expect this petition to get
• 4:16
  granted. I think we'll have AMDL.
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  It will probably be the last big one of 25 with the cases going
• 4:22
  out into California District Court, probably the Northern
• 4:26
  District of California. Speaking of the Texas Attorney
• 4:30
  General, we saw a lawsuit filed by the AG against Johnson and
• 4:33
  Johnson in Kenview for allegedly deceptively marketing Tylenol to
• 4:37
  pregnant mothers despite knowing the potential risks associated
• 4:40
  with it. What's going on with this case?
• 4:42
  Right. Like you mentioned, we saw the
• 4:44
  Texas AG filed A lawsuit against roadblocks.
• 4:47
  In addition to the Texas AG, also the Kentucky AG and the
• 4:51
  Louisiana AG has filed similar lawsuits going on in the Tylenol
• 4:56
  litigation. The Texas AG right now is the
• 4:58
  only one to bring action. They're alleging that Johnson
• 5:01
  and Johnson marketed these Tylenol medication to pregnant
• 5:05
  women and then give the adequate warnings.
• 5:08
  It's been really interesting. And we have next week the oral
• 5:11
  argument coming up before the 2nd Circuit.
• 5:14
  And the issue is whether or not the plaintiffs expert should be
• 5:17
  excluded like the District Court found, or if they should come
• 5:21
  in. So we saw the administration
• 5:23
  came forward with the study and an expert that said there is a
• 5:27
  relationship between using Tylenol during pregnancy and
• 5:31
  autism and ADHD. But there was just another study
• 5:34
  that came out that said there's no clear link.
• 5:37
  So it's going to be fascinating to see whether or not the Second
• 5:41
  Circuit finds that the judge in the MDL overstepped the bounds.
• 5:46
  Because basically what's supposed to happen is the judge
• 5:49
  is supposed to be the gatekeeper about what can come in and what
• 5:52
  evidence gets a point presented to the jury.
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  So what we're arguing is the judge overstepped the bounds and
• 5:58
  put on the white lab clip and really dove into the science and
• 6:02
  was getting too into it. And really that should be a
• 6:04
  battle of the experts. So this town, all decisions
• 6:07
  going to be huge because it could lead to one of the biggest
• 6:10
  mass torts ever, but also it's going to have a huge impact on
• 6:13
  the standard going forward. So that's going to be one of the
• 6:16
  biggest decisions in 26. We should have it before the end
• 6:19
  of Q1. We're also closely watching the
• 6:21
  Uber sex abuse litigation. Can you give everybody an update
• 6:24
  on where that stands after the last bellwether that we had a
• 6:27
  few weeks ago? Right, so that's another one.
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  In these app platform cases, they're all the rage right now.
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  We have right, the Uber lawsuits going on, the social media
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  addiction likely going to have these gaming addiction cases
• 6:41
  going on. We have the video game addiction
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  cases. So an Uber, we lost the initial
• 6:46
  bellwether case that was in state court.
• 6:49
  In the parallel MDL, we're moving forward towards the first
• 6:52
  trial in the MDL. It's going to be in January.
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  We're about 60 days out. So we're hoping we can learn
• 6:58
  some of the lessons and apply that from the first trial.
• 7:01
  Basically, the jury found that Uber didn't do enough and
• 7:05
  performing background checks and vetting the drivers, but that
• 7:08
  there wasn't a connection between Uber's negligence in
• 7:11
  that aspect and the injury suffered by the plaintiff.
• 7:14
  So it'll be really interesting to see how our great trial team
• 7:16
  overcomes that and establishes that connection.
• 7:19
  That just seems like a paper thin argument.
• 7:21
  They did something wrong, but we're not going to say that they
• 7:24
  did something wrong in connection with the harm that
• 7:27
  actually happened. It doesn't seem like that will
• 7:29
  really hold up now that we know their playbook and the
• 7:32
  plaintiffs attorney start digging into that a little more.
• 7:34
  Yeah, I think we'll be able to establish that correlation.
• 7:38
  And that's why these trials are so important, right?
• 7:40
  We get to hear from the jury about the facts and the evidence
• 7:43
  that's most important to them. And then based upon this ruling,
• 7:46
  we can really cater and develop our strategy going forward.
• 7:49
  So again, they found that Uber was negligent.
• 7:52
  Nobody's really disputing that. That seems like a slam dunk now.
• 7:56
  It's tying it all together and I feel confident with the great
• 7:59
  trial team we have, we'll be able to do that.
• 8:01
  There's about 2800 cases in MDL, another 7-8 hundred going on in
• 8:06
  state court. So this problem continues to
• 8:09
  mount for Uber, but it sounds like they're ready to go to
• 8:11
  trial and we should have a verdict before the end of
• 8:13
  January. Well, it seems like mass torts
• 8:16
  has officially entered the platform era.
• 8:19
  We've moved on mostly from medical devices and from
• 8:22
  dangerous drugs. We still have some bad ones out
• 8:24
  there, but all the new news that we hear in mass torts is all
• 8:27
  related to these apps in these platforms.
• 8:29
  What used to be just the effects on children, now we're looking
• 8:33
  at adults. These open AI lawsuits hitting
• 8:35
  the news. A lot of things are going to
• 8:36
  happen at the end of this year and as we enter Q1 of 2026.
• 8:40
  As always, Joe, thank you so much for joining us.
• 8:42
  The best 10 minutes in mass torts each week here on Tortalk.
• 8:46
  Thanks for having me, John.