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The California state-court bellwethers (JCCP 5255): K.G.M. v. Meta and Google, and the follow-on trials

Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding (JCCP) 5255, California state court (Los Angeles Superior Court); first bellwether K.G.M. v. Meta and Google

This is the raw, evidence-tiered claim ledger behind the K.G.M. case file. It is published for transparency: the source of truth, with its tiers intact, current as of 2026-08-20.

how to read the tiers

Each claim is tagged by the strength of the evidence behind it, not by how certain it sounds.

  • [ESTABLISHED]: stated in a primary source (a court order or filing, the docket, an official release) or, for a hearing, said on the official record. A fact about what was filed or said, not necessarily adjudicated true.
  • [OBSERVED]: carried by secondary coverage, or by a document read into the record.
  • [ASSUMED]: the distiller's inference, flagged as such.
  • Provenance flags ([interested-party], [advocacy-witness], [single-witness], [lawmaker characterization]) mark a claim that rests on one interested voice: reported, not adjudicated.

Tier key (this record's calibration, per the parent plan): ESTABLISHED means stated in a primary source (a court order or filing, the docket, a court-issued notice, an official government release) or in the project's verified baseline with independent corroboration; OBSERVED means carried by secondary coverage or inferred from it; ASSUMED means the drafter's inference, flagged as such. This authority-based calibration is the plan's deliberate adaptation for legal records, not the distillation skill's agreement-based multi-source tiers.

Reader summary

As of July 25, 2026, there is a large group of lawsuits in California state court, not the separate federal case, that accuse social media companies of designing their apps to be addictive and harming young users. About 1,600 of these suits, brought by individual young people, families, and more than 250 school districts, have been bundled together in a single coordinated proceeding called JCCP 5255, run out of Los Angeles Superior Court. A handful of "bellwether" (test) cases are being tried first to show how juries might react. In the first bellwether, K.G.M. v. Meta and Google, a jury returned a $6 million verdict on March 25, 2026 against Meta (which owns Instagram) and Google (which owns YouTube); Snap and TikTok had settled out of that first test case around the turn of 2026, which is why only two companies faced the jury. In early June 2026 (the ruling was announced June 10), the trial judge turned down the companies' requests to throw out or re-run the case, and both companies have since filed notices that they will appeal. Important: that verdict is being appealed; it has NOT been reviewed or approved by any appeals court yet. A second test case was set for trial on July 27, 2026, and it collapsed before it could be heard: YouTube settled out (reported June 23), then TikTok (June 30), then Snap reached a tentative settlement (July 20), and on July 22 the plaintiff simply dropped his remaining claims against Meta, which on the available reporting paid nothing. So the second test case produced settlements from three companies and no jury verdict at all. Worth holding on to, because it is the pattern rather than an accident: of the two bellwethers tried so far, one reached a jury and the other was resolved by the defendants leaving the room.

Claims (the ledger)

(a) The JCCP 5255 proceeding and the court

  1. [ESTABLISHED] The California cases are consolidated in a state-court coordinated proceeding known as JCCP 5255 (a Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding), captioned "Social Media Cases", heard in "Department 12" of the Los Angeles Superior Court (Spring Street Courthouse). (LA Superior Court public notice, 2026-02-13, primary, cached 2026-08-18; verified baseline.) (Corrected 2026-08-18, on the first run after the notice was cached: the comma had been inside the closing quote, which claims the notice's own phrase ended there.)

  2. [ESTABLISHED] This proceeding is separate from the federal multidistrict litigation (MDL 3047). JCCP 5255 is a California state-court matter; the federal MDL is a different proceeding in Oakland federal court before a different judge. (LASC notice; verified baseline; AP coverage.)

  3. [ESTABLISHED] The proceeding contains roughly 1,600 coordinated cases. That count includes more than 350 families and more than 250 school districts alongside individual young plaintiffs, so it is not composed solely of individual youth suits; and later July 2026 coverage reports higher running totals as filings continue. (Verified baseline; Scientific American for the composition; plaintiff-firm trackers for the rising count, treated as directional only.)

  4. [ESTABLISHED] The bellwether trials are presided over by Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl of the Los Angeles Superior Court. (LASC public notice, primary: the notice names the "Hon. Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl" as presiding; corroborated by the Social Media Victims Law Center release and AP coverage.) (Corrected 2026-08-18: the quoted span had been rendered Hon. Carolyn B. Kuhl, dropping the notice's own "Judge". It is set as a literal, not a quotation, because it is not a quotation of the notice: that is the correction. The court's usage is redundant and the record is the record.)

(b) K.G.M.: the first bellwether verdict and the 70/30 split

  1. [ESTABLISHED] The first bellwether is K.G.M. v. Meta Platforms, Inc. et al. (with Google as a co-defendant), tried in Los Angeles Superior Court. Snap and TikTok, originally also defendants in the first bellwether, settled out around the turn of 2026, leaving Meta and Google to face the jury. (Verified baseline; AP, NPR, Al Jazeera; the Snap/TikTok first-bellwether settlements per the baseline and January 2026 coverage.)

  2. [ESTABLISHED] On March 25, 2026, the jury returned a $6 million verdict against the defendants. (Verified baseline; NPR, verdict Wednesday March 25; Al Jazeera; AP.)

  3. [ESTABLISHED] The $6 million is made up of $3 million in compensatory damages plus $3 million in punitive damages. AP's phrasing describes the punitive $3 million as recommended by the jury on top of the $3 million awarded; the post-trial ruling left the full amount intact. (Verified baseline; Al Jazeera; NPR; AP via Washington Times; SMVLC release.)

  4. [ESTABLISHED] The award was allocated 70% to Meta and 30% to Google, meaning Meta is responsible for $4.2 million and Google for $1.8 million (the compensatory portion splitting $2.1 million / $0.9 million on the same ratio). This is why some outlets report only Meta's $4.2 million share. (Verified baseline; Al Jazeera; MediaPost; Fox Business; the compensatory split per the Crowell & Moring client alert.)

  5. [OBSERVED] The plaintiff is a young woman identified by the initials K.G.M. and by the first name "Kaley," reported as 20 years old at the time of the July 2026 coverage and from Chico, California; she said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube starting in childhood (YouTube from about age 6, per NPR), worsening her mental-health struggles. (AP via Washington Times and Las Vegas Sun; NPR. Age, name, and hometown carried by secondary coverage only.)

  6. [OBSERVED] The jury found the companies negligent in the design of their apps, that features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, and push notifications were built to maximize engagement, that the companies knew of the risks, and that they failed to adequately warn young users. (NPR, Al Jazeera, Fox Business, NBC; characterization of the jury's findings, not a quotation from the verdict form.)

(c) The post-trial motions denied (a trial-court ruling, NOT an appeal)

  1. [ESTABLISHED] In early June 2026, the trial court denied the defendants' motion for a new trial and their motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), in a 26-page ruling. Date precision: the denial was announced and widely covered on June 10, 2026, but Reuters reports the judge ruled "on Tuesday," which was June 9; the order's exact date should be taken from the minute order before anyone prints a numeral. This record says "early June (announced June 10)." (Reuters via reprints; MediaPost, 26-page ruling; CNBC URL dated 2026/06/10; SMVLC release, datelined June 10, announcing that the court "has denied" the motions; AP: denied in early June.)

  2. [ESTABLISHED] That denial is a trial-court decision (the same court that held the trial declining to disturb its own verdict). It is NOT an appellate ruling and does NOT mean an appeals court has reviewed or approved anything. (Verified baseline; procedural-posture discipline. The ruling was issued by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl per the plaintiff-counsel release and Reuters.)

  3. [OBSERVED] In denying the motions, Judge Kuhl reportedly wrote that the trial evidence "was sufficient to support a finding that Instagram design features were a substantial factor" in causing the plaintiff's harms and that Meta "never provided adequate warnings regarding the harms posed to minor users." Sourcing caution, confirmed by the 2026-07-16 audit: those two exact sentences appear only in the plaintiff-side SMVLC release; independent outlets corroborate the ruling's thrust but quote different passages of the same order (Reuters: the plaintiff was harmed by Instagram's design features regardless of content viewed; MediaPost: YouTube's design features maximized engagement to the point of creating addiction). Treat the wording as reported, not verified against the order itself. (SMVLC release; Reuters; MediaPost.)

(d) The appeals filed: who and when

  1. [ESTABLISHED] Both defendants have filed notices of appeal of the K.G.M. verdict. (Verified baseline; AP via Washington Times / Las Vegas Sun / Fortune.)

  2. [ESTABLISHED] Meta filed its notice of appeal first, in early July 2026, in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The precise date derives to Tuesday, July 7, 2026: AP's story published July 10 says Meta filed "Tuesday," and AP's July 15 story says Meta filed less than a week before YouTube's July 13 filing. No outlet prints the numeral, and docket confirmation was blocked (the Court of Appeal's public portal rejects automated lookups), so July 7 is a derivation; "early July" is the safe printable form. (AP via Las Vegas Sun, 2026-07-10; AP via The Columbian, 2026-07-12; AP via Washington Times, 2026-07-15.)

  3. [ESTABLISHED] YouTube (Google) filed its notice of appeal on Monday, July 13, 2026, in Los Angeles County Superior Court. (AP, dated July 15, 2026: filed "Monday," which was July 13; Fortune adds YouTube's argument that it is not a social media platform.)

  4. [ESTABLISHED] As of the July 16, 2026 as-of date, the verdict has NOT been reviewed, let alone affirmed, by any appellate court. The appeals have only just been filed; briefing and argument still lie ahead. (Verified baseline; AP/Fortune: the companies "are expected to provide their arguments related to the appeal in later court filings." Caveat: this rests on press coverage plus the absence of any contrary report; the appellate docket itself could not be machine-checked.)

(e) The second bellwether and the settlements

  1. [ESTABLISHED, then OVERTAKEN 2026-07-25] A second bellwether trial was scheduled to begin July 27, 2026 (Los Angeles Superior Court, within JCCP 5255). It will not be held. See claim 24a: every defendant resolved out before the date, and the plaintiff dismissed the last one on July 22, 2026. The scheduling fact remains true of the period it describes; the trial does not. (Verified baseline; FindLaw; The Recorder, 2026-07-08; The Next Web.)

  2. [OBSERVED] YouTube (Google) settled its part of the second bellwether confidentially, reported Tuesday, June 23, 2026. An earlier version of this record dated it June 24; that is the publication date of The Recorder's story, not the settlement date. Reported as a settlement in principle with confidential terms. (Fox Business; Gizmodo, June 24, citing Reuters; Morgan & Morgan's announcement, June 24; The Recorder story, June 24.)

  3. [OBSERVED] TikTok also settled its part of the second bellwether confidentially, on Tuesday, June 30, 2026. This resolves this record's original discrepancy flag D-1: the baseline said "early July"; the sources say June 30, and the deployed website content was corrected to June 30 on 2026-07-16. (The Next Web, June 30, crediting Bloomberg's Tuesday report; NBC News; settlement in principle, terms private.)

  4. [ESTABLISHED, then OVERTAKEN 2026-07-25] After YouTube and TikTok settled out, Meta and Snap remained as the defendants set to face the jury on July 27, 2026, and coverage of a July 8 pretrial ruling reported Judge Kuhl tentatively allowing testimony from senior executives including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram's Adam Mosseri, and Snap's Evan Spiegel. Both have since resolved out; see claims 24a and 24b. That executive testimony never happened, because the second bellwether never reached a jury. Read alongside claim 26, which records that Zuckerberg did testify in person at the FIRST bellwether on 2026-02-18: this claim is about the second trial only, and the two are one paragraph apart in this record. (Verified baseline; The Recorder, 2026-07-08, via search excerpt; superseded by the July 20 to 22 events below.)

  5. [OBSERVED] The second-bellwether plaintiff is a 15-year-old identified by the initials R.K.C. and the first name "Russell," who is reported to live in Florida; he alleges that features like infinite scroll and autoplay drove compulsive use that caused anxiety and sleep deprivation. See D-2: the plaintiff's Florida residence does not move the case out of California state court; it is still the JCCP 5255 second bellwether before Judge Kuhl. (NBC News; The Recorder; FindLaw; The Next Web.)

(e2) How the second bellwether ended without a trial (added 2026-07-25)

24a. [OBSERVED] Snap reached a tentative settlement, announced Monday, July 20, 2026; terms undisclosed. (Bloomberg, July 20; TechCrunch, July 21.)

24b. [OBSERVED] With every other defendant resolved, the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed his claims against Meta on Wednesday, July 22, 2026. This is a plaintiff's withdrawal, not a settlement with Meta, not a defence verdict, and not a continuance; on the reporting available, Meta paid nothing. Plaintiff's counsel Emily Jeffcott said he "has elected to withdraw his claims against Meta" given "the overall successful result of the litigation" and concerns about a weekslong trial. So the July 27, 2026 trial will not take place. (Courthouse News, July 22, staff reporter at the LA courthouse; TechCrunch, July 22; corroborated across four independent outlets plus a Meta statement.)

24c. [ASSUMED] Whether the July 22 dismissal was with or without prejudice is not established, and it matters: without prejudice would leave the claim refilable. The distiller flags this as unresolved rather than inferring either way.

Source-tier note on 24a to 24c, stated plainly. These rest on secondary coverage only. The Los Angeles Superior Court docket is not machine-retrievable (lacourt.org/casesummary is dead, the media portal is a JavaScript app behind a CAPTCHA), so no primary filing was obtained for the settlement or the dismissal. Under this project's rules that keeps them OBSERVED, not ESTABLISHED, however well corroborated. The site nonetheless corrects the affected pages immediately, because leaving a known-false trial date on a public page through the date itself is the larger error. Anyone with LASC access should pull the July 22 entry in 23SMCV03371 and re-tier these.

(f) Current status (as of 2026-07-25)

  1. [ESTABLISHED] First bellwether (K.G.M.): the $6 million jury verdict stands at the trial-court level; post-trial motions denied in early June 2026 (announced June 10); both defendants have filed notices of appeal (Meta in early July, derived July 7; YouTube July 13). The appeal is pending and unreviewed by any appellate court. (Verified baseline + corroborating coverage above.)

  2. [OBSERVED, restated 2026-07-25] Second bellwether: resolved without trial. YouTube settled (reported June 23), TikTok settled (June 30), Snap settled tentatively (July 20), and the plaintiff dismissed Meta (July 22). No jury ever heard it. (Superseded the earlier "trial set for July 27; Meta and Snap remain" statement; see 24a to 24c and their source-tier note.)

  3. [ESTABLISHED] K.G.M.'s appeal: as of 2026-07-25 no appellate case has been docketed in the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District. A search of the live appellate docket by the JCCP lead trial-court number returns only two long-concluded pre-trial writ proceedings, and a party search for "Meta Platforms" returns 19 records, none of them this appeal. This is expected rather than surprising, because a California notice of appeal is filed with the trial court and sits with the clerk before transmission. The practical consequence for this record: any reported appellate case number is wrong, because none exists yet, and there is no stay, supersedeas bond, record designation, or briefing schedule. (Searched 2026-07-25 with two passing positive controls: a known case number returned its summary, and a known trial-court number returned 2 records.)

  4. [OBSERVED, added 2026-08-20] Mark Zuckerberg testified in person at the K.G.M. trial, on Wednesday, February 18, 2026, 35 days before the verdict. Reported as his first testimony about child safety before a jury. Adam Mosseri testified roughly a week earlier. On the substance, coverage records him denying that Meta seeks to make Instagram addictive or that he sets company-wide direction to increase time spent or to recruit under-13s, describing enforcement of Instagram's age limits as very difficult, and being questioned about the decision to permit beauty filters simulating cosmetic surgery after internal expert warnings. (Multi-outlet secondary: NPR, which ran a preview and a same-day testimony report; PBS NewsHour, naming the weekday and date prospectively; NBC News; Fortune; KTLA; Rolling Stone; and the New York Times as cited by the case's Wikipedia entry.)

    Why this is OBSERVED and not ESTABLISHED, given how many outlets carry it: the tier key here reserves ESTABLISHED for a primary source or the verified baseline with corroboration, and the trial transcript is a Los Angeles Superior Court record, which is in no free archive. That is the same constraint that holds this whole ledger to four machine-checked spans. The date is corroborated in two independent directions, prospectively by an outlet naming the weekday and the date, and retrospectively by same-day testimony coverage, which is the strongest confirmation available without the transcript.

Tensions / open questions

  • The exact date of the post-trial denial (June 9 or June 10). Reuters says the judge ruled "on Tuesday" (June 9); the announcement and coverage are dated June 10. Open until the minute order is checked; this record and the website say "early June (announced June 10)."

  • Whether the June ruling's quoted wording is exact. Claim 13 quotes Judge Kuhl via a plaintiff-side press release; the 2026-07-16 audit confirmed no independent outlet carries those exact sentences (they quote other passages). The fact of the denial is solid; the exact wording should be verified against the signed order before quoting publicly.

  • Whether Mark Zuckerberg testified in the K.G.M. trial. CLOSED 2026-08-20, the same day it opened, and the answer is yes. He testified in person on 2026-02-18; see claim 26. The California attorney general's hedged remark was correct, and the hedge was the only reason to doubt it. The lesson is about where the doubt came from: this record had no Zuckerberg-testimony source because nobody had looked, and the absence read like an open question about the trial when it was an open question about this ledger's coverage. One search with a positive control settled it. Original entry follows.

    Whether Mark Zuckerberg testified in the K.G.M. trial (opened 2026-08-20). At a press conference on 2026-08-18, California's attorney general said, hedged with "I think", that Zuckerberg testified in the Los Angeles trial Meta lost. That is this case. Nothing in this record establishes it: the only Zuckerberg-testimony source here is Law.com reporting in July 2026 that he could testify in the second bellwether, which is a different trial and was prospective. So there are three readings and this record cannot choose between them: he testified in K.G.M. and no source in this ledger covered it; the AG was thinking of the second bellwether; or the AG was mistaken, which his own hedge allows for. It matters more than a detail of witness order, because a chief executive taking the stand in the first trial his company lost is a fact the site would state, and the source for it is currently a hedged remark captured by machine transcription. The trial transcript settles it, and Los Angeles Superior Court records are in no free archive, which is why this ledger is guarded at four spans in the first place. Source of the claim: press-conference ASR at 28:16, CAPTION-ASR tier, quarantined from npm run check:quotes; distilled at docs/research/single-source/2026-08-18-ag-press-conference.md claim Q21.

  • JCCP 5255 case-count precision and currency. "Roughly 1,600" is consistent across March-April 2026 sources but is a round number from secondary coverage, includes school-district and family suits, and rises over time; it is not a docket count.

Sources

← the K.G.M. case file

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