Penn Hills School District joins growing list of educational entities suing social media companies

The Penn Hills School District has joined many others nationwide taking legal action against social media companies.

The school board voted 8-0 at its June 28 meeting to join a civil, multijurisdictional lawsuit against social media companies including Facebook, TikTok and YouTube claiming they have bolstered a youth mental health crisis.

Board member Devon Goetze was absent.

The suit claims social media is having an adverse effect on school-age children.

“We need to get back to education,” said board president Erin Vecchio. “Kids are getting pulled away with social media. It helps increase bullying. It increases fighting. It has ruined these kids. They have no lives besides this social media stuff. Nobody even goes outside anymore to play.

“We need to get back to the basics of seeing what’s going on in the world instead of just going on social media. Everything is a battle on social media. I want these kids to get back to learning and being friends with people.”

Vecchio pushed for the district to join what has become a growing list educational entities that want to hold the aforementioned companies accountable for how they operate and manage their products.

That list includes Allegheny Valley, Seneca Valley and Apollo-Ridge school districts to name a few. Pittsburgh Public Schools filed its federal lawsuit in April.

“You’ve got more people getting into fights because of phones and jealousy and stuff like that,” Vecchio said. “It’s totally out of hand. Every school district is jumping on this bandwagon now to go after it, so it must be everywhere. It’s not just Penn Hills. I want these kids to be able to come to school and be excited to learn, not excited to get into social media and stuff like that.”

Penn Hills’ actions included a contingent fee agreement with California-based Frantz Law Group, meaning the district is not responsible for any fees and costs if the district does not receive any monetary compensation as a result of the lawsuit.

A social media litigation brochure from the Frantz Law Group further explaining the matter was attached to the Penn Hills School Board meeting online agenda at phsd.org.

“Utilizing the public nuisance liability theory allows public entities to hold social media companies accountable for their conduct and the damage caused,” the brochure said in part.

A memo from Frantz Law Group states that research confirms social media is playing a major role in causing mental health problems in youth, and excessive and problematic use of social media is harmful to children’s mental, behavioral and emotional health. It also states excessive use of social media is associated with increased rates of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, eating disorders and suicide.

“Penn Hills has had issues with social media and how it kind of drives kids to sometimes do not great stuff,” district Solicitor Dayne Dice said. “I think (the litigation) is a good thing. Maybe it gets the social media companies to get their act together and maybe it makes a few bucks for the district. I know it sounds colloquial to put it that way, but it’s kind of that simple.”

Dice said they are coordinating efforts with Butler firm Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham as part of the process.

Attorney Thomas W. King III said his firm has filed about 60 related suits on behalf of school districts across the state in association with the Frantz law firm.

“We’re glad to hear that Penn Hills is going to join us,” King said. “They’re certainly welcome to do that, and we’re glad to represent them. Each school district has its own case. This is not a class action (lawsuit). Multidistrict litigation is something in the federal court system when there are lots of lawsuits coming in across the country related basically to the same complaints.”

King said they are early in the process with the numerous defendants.

“The defendants have filed their motions under the federal rules, and we’re defending against those motions to dismiss,” he said. “We think we’ll be successful in their attempt to dismiss these cases. That’s the stage we’re at in this particular time. Ultimately, there will be lots of filing in the federal court system out there.”

It is unclear when those motions would be resolved.

King and his firm has had success working with Frantz before.

“We previously associated with the Frantz law firm in the Juul (Labs vaping) cases that were filed in California, and we successfully recovered money for about 48 different school districts in Pennsylvania in those cases,“ he said.

“We like our (social media) case, and we have a number of excellent lawyers from across the country working on this thing.

“The school districts that are involved in this litigation have the children’s best interest in mind, and I salute the school districts that are willing to step up to the plate and take on these big multinational corporations. It’s no small task to do that.”