OAKLAND, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – Netflix says it shouldn’t be held liable for the increase in youth suicides following its release of the series 13 Reasons Why, which was adapted from a fictional novel about a young girl killing herself and released in 2017.
Originally sued in California Superior Court in Santa Clara County, Netflix lists at least 12 reasons why an ambitious class action lawsuit fails. In a Sept. 1 motion to dismiss, the streaming service says the claims are time-barred, as well as prevented by free speech laws.
The company, which has removed the case to Oakland federal court, is using an anti-SLAPP defense, which allows defendants to cut off cases at an early stage if their conduct is protected by free speech (SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation).
“13 Reasons Why is not the first work to tell a story about teen suicide. The subject has been explored in countless literary works, motion pictures, and TV shows—everything from Romeo and Juliet to Dead Poets Society,” the motion says.
“And this is not the first lawsuit that has claimed that the parties who brought stories to the public are to blame, and should be held legally liable, for suicides and other tragic events. Courts, however, have repeatedly rejected such suits.”
The motion cites four such cases:
-A 1988 ruling that singer Ozzy Osbourne and his music were not liable for the suicide of a teenager;
-A 1982 ruling that members of the public who were “prone to violence” would be attracted to theaters showing “Boulevard Nights,” and thus the movie was not liable for the shooting of someone outside a theater;
-A 1981 dismissing claims the rape scene in Born Innocent caused a real-life rape; and
-A 2002 Sixth Circuit ruling that violence in popular culture desensitized high school students to violence and caused one to kill his classmates.
“If allowed to proceed, Plaintiffs’ suit would have profound chilling effects on free expression,” Netflix’s attorneys wrote.
“Creators obligated to shield certain viewers from expressive works that depict suicide would inevitably censor themselves to avoid the threat of liability… In such a landscape, a long line of creative works—classic staples like Anna Karenina, Antigone, The Awakening, Madame Bovary, and The Bell Jar, as well as countless modern works like Dear Evan Hansen, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Wristcutters: A Love Story, and The Virgin Suicides—would be at risk.
“The First Amendment does not permit such a result.”
The complaint was filed earlier this year by attorneys at the Digital Justice Foundation and Hamilton Law of Las Vegas. The suit came more than four years after the suicide of a plaintiff known as B.H.
Netflix released 13 Reasons Why in March 2017 as a series adaptation of Jay Asher’s novel. The show involves a high school student who leaves behind 13 cassette tapes that reveal the 13 reasons why Hannah Baker killed herself.
The lawsuit says H.B. watched the show before hers suicide on April 28, 2017. It blames Netflix for prioritizing a market dominance of young viewers over their mental well-being.
The complaint says the National Institute of Mental Health associated a 29% increase in child-suicide rate in April 2017 with 13 Reasons Why – “a child-suicide spike that could have been avoided had Netflix taken basic moral responsibilities to warn and to not target its most vulnerable viewers,” the complaint says.
“Yet, even after empirical researchers repeatedly identified the profound human cost of Netflix's decisions, Netflix still did not meaningfully warn about the dangers of its Show, and did not moderate its algorithms to avoid targeting vulnerable children. Instead, Netflix dug its heels in for years, choosing a path of callous resistance to the realities of hundreds of children whose deaths Netflix had tortiously caused.”
In addition to its anti-SLAPP defense, Netflix notes that it took four years for the lawsuit to be filed and says its negligence and strict liability claims are time-barred. B.H.’s brothers, who are listed as plaintiffs, also lack standing to pursue a wrongful death claim, it says.
A strict liability claim fails because the show is not a “product” and the negligence and wrongful death claims fail because Netflix did not owe the plaintiffs a duty, the motion argues.
“Plaintiffs’ allegation that Netflix was warned there was a ‘potential for suicide-contagion effects upon impressionable viewers’ does not establish the requisite ‘high degree of foreseeability’ to give rise to a legal duty,” the motion says.
“Suicide is a ‘too idiosyncratic’ reaction to a television series for Netflix – or, for that matter, any other distributor of suicide-related content – to have reasonably anticipated.”
Netflix is represented by Blanca Young of Munger, Tolles & Olson.