A judge has affirmed his previous order dismissing Meta as a defendant in a suit filed by families of the 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting who allege Meta and Activision 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.
On Tuesday, the judge stood by his order and denied what was dubbed by the plaintiffs’ attorneys as a motion for a new trial. The lawyers said that the motion was based, among other things, on the finding of new facts that could not have been discovered earlier as well as on the insufficiency of the evidence to justify the earlier ruling.
“The court was well informed of the factual theory animating plaintiffs’ tort claims,” the judge wrote “Frankly, the court assumed the worst about defendants’ behavior based on the pleadings and reasonable inferences and said as much on the record during argument.”
The ruling was not intended to be any vindication of Meta’s business practices, according to the judge, who added that the plaintiffs lawyers showed Meta to be “opportunistic and quite probably cynical.”
According to Highberger, the plaintiffs’ problem is not with his interpretation and application of controlling precedent, but instead their fundamental disagreement with current law.
“They are much better served by taking their policy arguments as soon as possible to the appellate courts where they can argue for a change in the common law,” the judge said.
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.
Co-defendant Activision also is asking to be dismissed as a defendant in a motion scheduled for hearing Jan. 28. 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.