Brian J. Panish

LOS ANGELES - Since Brian J. Panish launched the plaintiff-side products liability and personal injury firm now named Panish Shea Boyle Ravipudi LLP in 2005, he's scored big. By his count, since 2011, he's obtained more than $500 million in verdicts and plenty more in settlements -- including $2 billion for the victims of the massive gas leak at Aliso Canyon, an outcome that won a 2022 Daily Journal CLAY Award.

That case took nearly six years of litigation that included more than $5 million in discovery sanctions against defendant Sempra Energy Co. Southern California Gas Leak Cases, JCCP 4861 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Feb. 2, 2016).

"Last year was one of our busier years, and 2023 looks to be even busier," Panish said in early January from Maui, where he was working on a case.

He was also about to launch a major new assault on tech targets, part of a collection of civil suits, coordinated in Los Angeles, contending that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms exploit adolescent vulnerabilities for unjust gain with business models that maximize screen time and encourage excessive use. Newton v. Meta Platforms Inc. et al., JCCP 5255 & 5256 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Jan. 12, 2023).

Panish's complaint alleges the platforms breached the public trust and harmed kids. "Many researchers argue that defendants' social media products facilitate cyberbullying, contribute to obesity and eating disorders, instigate sleep deprivation to achieve around-the- clock platform engagement, encourage children to negatively compare themselves to others and develop a broad discontentment for life," it asserts. "They have been connected to depression, anxiety, self-harm, and ultimately suicidal ideation, suicide attempts and completed suicide."

The complaint seeks to end-around the defendants' likely use of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to disclaim responsibility for harmful content by proclaiming it does not seek to hold them liable as the publisher of any content created by third parties.

"Social media is a new area for litigation," Panish said, pointing out that the U.S. Supreme Court is about to hear oral argument in a case over the scope of Section 230 and how completely it immunizes tech companies. Gonzalez v. Google LLC, 21-1333 (S.Ct., argument set for Feb. 21, 2023).

"Section 230 is a big part of this, but we believe these apps come under product liability law as well," Panish said.

In November 2022, he settled for $32 million in a negligence case in Tulare County for the grandmother and guardian of a minor child who suffered profound and permanent brain damage from malnutrition when his parents subjected him to an all-fruit diet based on their beliefs about the nature of the disease. The abuse and neglect was reported to county child protective services, but they failed to act. J.G. v. County of Tulare, VCU286277 (Tulare Co. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 28, 2021).

"The county ignored the situation, and the child suffered," Panish said. "We settled on the eve of trial, and it's said to be the largest settlement ever in California against a child protective services agency."