JPML Vacates CTO-30 in Social Media MDL After Judge Grants Order to Remand Case

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation vacated conditional transfer order 30 (CTO-30), said a Tuesday filing (docket 3047) in In Re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation before the JPML. On Friday, in Nasca et al v. ByteDance, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis for Eastern New York in Brooklyn granted plaintiffs Dean and Michelle Nasca’s motion to remand their product liability and negligence lawsuit against TikTok, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, MTA Long Island Railroad and Islip, Long Island, to Suffolk County Supreme Court for lack of jurisdiction. The Nascas sued TikTok in U.S. District Court for Northern California in March 2023 following the death of their 16-year-old son, Chase, who died by suicide the previous year after the platform allegedly directed him to adult accounts with "thousands" of “highly depressive, violent, self-harm and suicide themed content." TikTok included the Nascas' case in a notice of potential tagalong actions to Social Media Adolescent Addiction, and the JPML conditionally transferred it to the MDL in CTO-30.