Attorneys for families of the 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting — who allege social media platforms played a role in the deaths of their loved ones — lost a round in court when a judge dismissed Activision Blizzard Inc. as a defendant in the case.
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.
At that time the judge denied Activision’s anti-SLAPP motion. The state’s anti-SLAPP — Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation — law is intended to prevent people from using courts, and potential threats of a lawsuit, to intimidate those who are exercising their First Amendment rights.
However, on Wednesday the judge granted Activision’s second dismissal motion that was based not on free speech, but on the grounds that the plaintiffs’ pleadings were incurably flawed. Highberger wrote that the families’ arguments “fail to allege legally cognizable causation and duty.”
No attorney or family member showed up for Wednesday’s hearing.
In December, Highberger reaffirmed his ruling regarding Meta and the families are appealing the Meta decision. 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 contended that in 2019, Ramos began playing Activision’s “Call of Duty” video games, which they allege exposed him to the Daniel Defense brand. The plaintiffs maintained that the vividly realistic content of the “Call of Duty” video games groomed Ramos to commit the mass killings.
But the Activision attorneys denied any causation liability on the company’s part.
“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.
The alleged defects in the plaintiffs’ argument against Activision are just as incurable as those against Meta, 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.
But in rebuttal papers filed Jan. 14, the plaintiffs’ attorneys contended that Activision should remain a defendant.
“Ramos carried the weapon Activision had taught him to covet for its killing power — the Daniel Defense DDM4V7 rifle equipped with the EOTech sight- – and he would use it exactly as marketed,” the plaintiffs’ families lawyers stated in their pleadings.
Activision chose to market real-life firearms through combat simulation and it targeted its marketing to adolescent males — the population most likely to carry out a mass shooting –who have highly malleable brains vulnerable to “Call of Duty’s addictive dopamine reward system,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys further stated in their pleadings.