Lloyd v. Facebook, Inc.
- Edward Chen
- 3:21-cv-10075
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 7
In Lloyd v. Facebook, Judge Chen granted defendants’ motion to dismiss, ending the case because claims were improperly repleaded and the contract claim lacked federal jurisdiction.
Susan Lloyd and defendants Facebook, Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., and Mark Zuckerberg; the order ended the case in the district court.
What happened
In Lloyd v. Facebook, Inc., Susan Lloyd, who represented herself, sued Facebook, Meta Platforms, and Mark Zuckerberg. She alleged that Facebook was inaccessible to people with disabilities, tracked her activity on other websites, and allowed prolonged harassment by other users. She asserted disability, privacy, fraud, contract, negligence, and related claims.
The court dismissed the claims that Lloyd had repleaded even though an earlier order had allowed her to amend only the contract claim. It also explained that the disability claims failed because Facebook was not a physical public accommodation covered by the federal disability laws, the California Unruh Act did not apply to a digital-only website, the fraud claims lacked specific supporting facts, and the privacy and negligence claims were barred by federal law protecting online services from liability for third-party content. The court dismissed the contract claim for lack of federal diversity jurisdiction because the Terms of Service made it legally certain that Lloyd could not recover the required amount.
The court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss without leave to amend, directed the clerk to enter judgment and close the case, and Judge Edward M. Chen signed the February 7, 2023 order.
The detailed version
- Lloyd v. Facebook, Inc. · No. 3:21-cv-10075
- Edward Chen
- Feb. 7, 2023
Background
Susan Lloyd, proceeding without a lawyer, sued Facebook, Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., and Mark Zuckerberg. Lloyd alleged that she had severe vision issues and was disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). She claimed that the Facebook platform lacked various accessibility features, including sufficiently large or resizable text, adequate color contrast, visible form-field labels, useful error notices, seizure-prevention controls, and an accessibility statement.
Lloyd also alleged that Facebook tracked her visits to third-party websites while she was logged out and then displayed advertisements connected to those visits. She further alleged that hundreds of people, led by Joshua Thornsbery, used Facebook to harass and threaten her, post personal information, and discuss ways to interfere with security cameras at her home. She asserted claims under the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and the California Unruh Act, along with fraud, intentional misrepresentation, invasion of privacy, breach of contract, negligence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Procedural history and analysis
In an earlier dismissal order, the court had dismissed the breach-of-contract claim with permission to amend and dismissed the other claims without permission to amend. Lloyd nevertheless repleaded the previously dismissed claims in her Third Amended Complaint and did not amend the breach-of-contract claim. The court held that it could dismiss claims included outside the specific permission to amend.
The court also described independent reasons for dismissing the non-contract claims. It held that Facebook was not a “place of public accommodation” under federal disability law because the relevant law applied to physical places, absent a connection between the website and an actual physical location. It held that the Unruh Act did not apply to a digital-only website such as Facebook. It held that the fraud and intentional-misrepresentation allegations did not identify specific fraudulent statements or facts supporting an inference that Facebook intended to defraud Lloyd, as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b).
The court further held that Lloyd’s invasion-of-privacy, negligence, and negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claims were barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act because they concerned Facebook’s decisions about material that third parties sought to post online. It also held that Lloyd had not adequately alleged Zuckerberg’s personal involvement in, or direction of, the challenged conduct under the alter-ego theory she advanced.
Breach-of-contract claim and disposition
The court considered whether it had diversity jurisdiction over the contract claim. Diversity jurisdiction permits a federal court to hear certain disputes between citizens of different states when the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000. The court concluded that the Terms of Service capped aggregate liability at the greater of $100 or the amount Lloyd had paid Meta in the preceding 12 months and excluded several categories of damages. Because of those contractual limits, the court found it legally certain that Lloyd could not meet the $75,000 amount-in-controversy requirement. It granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the contract claim for lack of jurisdiction and expressed no opinion on whether Lloyd could pursue that claim in state court.
The court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss without leave to amend. It directed the clerk to enter judgment and close the case. Judge Edward M. Chen signed the order.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.