EAST ST. LOUIS - National consolidation of six video game addiction suits in three states makes no sense and probably won’t happen, argued defendants in the only suit at Southern Illinois District Court.
On April 5, the defendants opposed a motion of Marion County resident Cynthia Jiminez to stay the suit until judges in Washington D.C. have resolved a consolidation petition.
Bryan Hopkins of St. Louis County filed the opposition for his client Roblox and defendants Microsoft, Google, Nintendo, Epic Games and Mojang Studios.
He asked U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn to proceed on pending motions to dismiss the suit under arbitration clauses, the First Amendment and other doctrines.
“This Court should not hesitate to decide those motions,” he wrote.
Hopkins rejected Jiminez’s claim that consolidation would relieve the burden of simultaneous litigation, stating her counsel knew about that hardship when they filed the cases.
“The law firm representing Plaintiffs has filed five of those six cases,” he wrote.
The complaints name 14 defendants beyond the six in McGlynn’s court.
Tina Bullock and Breean Walas of Georgia and Danielle Mason of Alabama filed Jiminez’s suit in November.
They claimed video games reduce control over habits and take priority over other activities.
They also claimed addiction results in physical and financial harm, loss of social function and cognitive decline.
They added that defendants exploit minors and young adults to ensure longer play and entice them to spend money on microtransactions.
According to Hopkins, the parties agreed on a briefing schedule for suits in Southern Illinois, Northern Illinois, Eastern Arkansas, and Western Missouri.
In January, McGlynn extended a deadline for responsive pleadings to March 29, “due to the complexity involved in managing five separate cases in five different jurisdictions.”
Plaintiffs petitioned the Judicial Panel on Multi District Litigation for consolidation on March 14.
Bullock moved to stay Jiminez’s suit on March 22, claiming many similar cases would be filed across the nation and more were forthcoming from Western Missouri.
She claimed the litigation would likely involve expert discovery on patents and algorithms.
She claimed plaintiffs would likely seek to depose the same corporate witnesses.
On March 27, a judge in Eastern Arkansas denied a stay.
On March 29, all six of the defendants in McGlynn's court moved to dismiss and Microsoft, Nintendo, Epic Games and Mojang Studios moved to compel arbitration.
On April 1, a judge in Northern Illinois denied a stay.
Hopkins cited the denials in his April 5 brief and claimed defendants shouldn’t remain in limbo pending resolution in Washington.
He claimed plaintiffs couldn’t carry the heavy burden of consolidation given differences among defendants, games and platforms, allegations of harm, and arbitration issues.
He stated that to his knowledge plaintiffs in two suits hadn’t served their cases on defendants.
Along with the defendants in McGlynn's court, plaintiffs have sued Activision Blizzard, Apple, Blizzard Entertainment, Blue Stacks, Electronic Arts, Infinity Ward, MSI Computer, Raven Software, Rockstar Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sledgehammer Games, Take-Two Interactive Software, Treyarch and Ubisoft.