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Tuesday, November 5, 2024

No MDL for teen video addiction lawsuits, judicial panel decides

Federal Court
Webp mcglynnhorizontal

U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn | U.S. District Court

WASHINGTON - Judges with authority to assign a single judge for suits from many districts denied a petition to consolidate 15 claims that video games cause addiction.

They issued a decision on May 30 finding each action pleaded a conspiracy claim against a different group of defendants and involved different combinations of products.

“We are typically hesitant to centralize litigation against multiple, competing defendants which marketed, manufactured and sold similar products,” they wrote.

The decision keeps District Judge Stephen McGlynn of East St. Louis in charge of a suit Cynthia Jiminez of Marion County filed last November.

She claimed Microsoft, Google, Nintendo, Epic Games, Roblox and Mojang Studios exploited minors and young adults to play longer and spend on microtransactions.

Her counsel Tina Bullock claimed video games reduce control over habits and take priority over other activities.

They claimed addiction results in physical and financial harm, loss of social function and cognitive decline.

They filed four similar suits in four other districts.

McGlynn extended a deadline for responsive pleadings to March 29 due to the complexity in managing five cases in five jurisdictions.

On March 14 Bullock petitioned the Judicial Panel on Multi District Litigation to consolidate the cases and a sixth from another firm.

She recommended district court in Western Missouri or Eastern Arkansas.

She moved to stay Jiminez’s suit pending the panel’s decision, claiming similar cases would be filed across the nation and more were forthcoming from Western Missouri.

She claimed litigation would likely involve expert discovery on patents and algorithms.

She claimed plaintiffs would likely seek to depose the same corporate witnesses.

Roblox counsel Bryan Hopkins of St. Louis County opposed a stay on behalf of all defendants in April, predicting the panel would deny the petition.

Hopkins claimed the parties agreed on a briefing schedule for actions in Southern Illinois, Northern Illinois, Eastern Arkansas and Western Missouri.

He asked McGlynn to proceed on pending motions to dismiss Jiminez’s suit under arbitration clauses, the First Amendment and other doctrines.

By the time the panel in Washington brought the petition to a hearing the docket carried 15 actions from ten districts.

At oral argument a plaintiff lawyer stated there would be 10,000.

The panel ruled that a mere possibility of additional actions doesn’t support centralization even where thousands of actions are predicted.

They stated they didn’t deny centralization based on an insufficient number of actions but rather on a lack of common factual questions. 

They found games at issue in Jiminez’s suit were Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox.

They found games in another suit were Battlefield, Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Rainbow Six.

They found games in another suit were Call of Duty, Fortnite, Roblox and Grand Theft Auto.

They found games in another suit were Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch.

“Proponents of an industry wide multi district litigation generally have a heavy burden to show that the actions will share sufficient overlap that including them will promote the just and efficient conduct of the litigation,” they wrote.

They proposed informal coordination as a practical alternative.    

Defendants in the first six cases:

2KGames

Apple

Activision Blizzard

Blizzard Entertainment

Another Axiom

Dell and Dell Technologies

Electronic Arts

Epic Games

Google

Innersloth

Infinity Ward

Meta Platforms

Microsoft

Mojang Studios

Nintendo of America

Raven Software

Rec Room

Roblox

Rockstar North Limited

Rockstar Games

Sledgehammer Games

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Take-Two Interactive Software

Treyarch

Ubisoft Divertissements and Ubisoft Entertainment

Visual Concepts Entertainment Studios. 

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