From: Matthew
Hoyle <MHoyle@oeclaw.co.uk>
Sent: Saturday
29 March 2025 16:08
To: Stephen
Pitel; obligations
Subject: Re: Novel
Claim in Negligence/Public Nuisance Not Struck
If
the problems the students have amount to recognised psychiatric conditions,
then I can well see that they personally might have a claim. But even then, do
we have a right against each other that our lives are not made less convenient
by making third persons ill?
If I
go to work with flu, can I be sued by a KC for making their junior sick, such
that the KC has to spend much more time revising the draft pleadings the junior
was working on?
Or,
putting it even more simply, can you be sued for negligently making someone
else s contractual performance (or performance of statutory duty) more
expensive? Surely the answer is no.
As
for nuisance, what public law right is being interfered with here? And why do
the schools have particular standing? This is a long way from someone blocking
the highway or polluting a river.
Matthew
Hoyle
Barrister
One
Essex Court
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From: Stephen Pitel <spitel@uwo.ca>
Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2025 10:49:12 AM
To: obligations <obligations@uwo.ca>
Subject: ODG: Novel Claim in Negligence/Public Nuisance Not Struck
Some may
find the facts and nature of the claims interesting on reading Toronto
District School Board v Meta Platforms Inc., 2025 ONSC 1499 (link is: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2025/2025onsc1499/2025onsc1499.html).
The decision is a few weeks old but it was not immediately available
online.
The
plaintiffs are school boards. The defendants are social media
corporations. The plaintiffs claim the defendants caused them substantial
increased costs because they made it much harder to educate students (something
they are legally required to do). Students using various social media
applications cost more to teach. The plaintiffs claim the defendants
entice school-age students into unhealthy dependence on social media apps such
as Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
My aim is
to draw attention to the claim, more so than to the reasons offered for not
striking it out and instead allowing it to proceed. I suspect there are
very different views across this list of whether such a claim has legal merit,
whether under Canadian law or other similar common law. Given that the
negligence claim is for economic loss, I think the reasons don t grapple with
some aspects of the law. And I am highly skeptical of the public nuisance
claim, similar to other claims that certain drugs or handguns are public
nuisances because of widespread effects across society.
Could this
be followed by claims for health care costs the state incurs due to the same
social media use by children, much like state claims against tobacco
corporations?
Stephen
Professor Stephen G.A. Pitel
Faculty of Law, Western University
(519) 661-2111 ext 88433
President, Canadian Association for Legal Ethics/Association canadienne pour
l ethique juridique
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