Attorneys for Activision Blizzard Inc. are asking a judge to do what he did for Meta and dismiss their client as a defendant in a suit filed by families of the 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting who allege the platforms played a role in the deaths of their loved ones.
The May 2022 shootings by Salvador Ramos at Robb Elementary School left 19 children and two teachers dead. On Sept. 5, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William F. Highberger eliminated Meta as a defendant, finding that allowing liability on its part would impose on a content creator or disseminator “limitless liability” for the violent acts of others anywhere in the world.
The plaintiffs had alleged in their suit filed in May 2024 that Ramos was exposed to Daniel Defense’s “aggressive, combat-fetishizing” posts on Instagram, which is owned by Meta.
Daniel Defense is a firearms manufacturer based in Black Creek, Georgia, that produces high-end AR-15 style rifles and accessories for military, law enforcement, and civilian use. The plaintiffs alleged that before perpetrating the mass shooting, Ramos had a growing fixation with Daniel Defense weapons and accessories.
As to Activision, the Uvalde families contend that in 2019, Ramos began playing Activision’s “Call of Duty” video games, which they allege exposed him to the Daniel Defense brand. The families maintain that the vividly realistic content of the “Call of Duty” video games groomed Ramos to commit the mass killings.
But the Activision attorneys contend in their court papers that the company has no liability in the families’ lawsuit.
“Just as plaintiffs failed to plead proximate cause or duty as to Meta, so too have they failed to plead proximate cause or duty as to Activision,” the Activision attorneys state in their court papers.
Just as the plaintiffs could not cure the defects as to Meta, the same is true for Activision, the Activision lawyers further contend in their pleadings.
“For the same reason the court concluded that Meta owed plaintiffs no duty, the court should also find that plaintiffs have not and cannot plead that Activision owed them a duty … to prevent harm from the violent act of a third party,” the Activision attorneys state in their court papers.
A hearing on Activision’s dismissal motion is scheduled Jan. 28. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs’ attorney filed court papers on Oct. 24 asking the judge to vacate his decision in Meta’s favor and allow the families to file an amended complaint. The lawyer states in her court papers that the motion is based, among other things, on the discovery of new evidence that could not have been discovered earlier as well as on the insufficiency of the evidence to justify the earlier ruling.