King v. Facebook Inc.

599 F.Supp.3d 901

Adrienne Sepaniek KING, Plaintiff,

v.FACEBOOK INC., Defendant.

Case No. 21-cv-04573-EMC

United States District Court, N.D. California.

Signed April 20, 2022

Russel David Myrick, The RDM Legal Group, La Jolla, CA, Samuel P. King, Pro Hac Vice, King & king LLP, Honolulu, HI, for Plaintiff.

Jacob Marcus Heath, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP, Menlo Park, CA, Jason S. George, Matan Shacham, Keker, Van Nest and Peters LLP, San Francisco, CA, Michelle Lynn Visser, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, San Francisco, CA, for Defendant.

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO DISMISS SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT

Docket No. 62

EDWARD M. CHEN, United States District Judge Adrienne Sepaniak King filed suit against Defendant Facebook, Inc. after the company disabled the account that Ms. King had with Facebook. According to Ms. King, Facebook claimed that the account was disabled because she had violated Community Standards even though she had not. Facebook also did not give specifics as to how Ms. King had violated Community Standards. Based on a prior order, Ms. King was allowed to file a second amended complaint ("SAC") to assert a single claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Pending before the Court is Facebook's motion to dismiss the SAC. Having considered the parties’ briefs as well as the oral argument of counsel, the Court hereby GRANTS Facebook's motion to dismiss.

I. FACTUAL & PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. Order on FAC

Previously, the Court adjudicated a motion to dismiss on the first amended complaint ("FAC") which had been filed by Ms. King and her son. See Docket No. 56 (Order). In the FAC, there were various causes of action, both contract and tort-based, but most of the claims were clearly meritless. The only claims that warranted more careful analysis were the claims for breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant (claims brought by Ms. King only).

The Court noted that, as alleged, Ms. King

had a contract with Facebook based on its Terms of Service and that Facebook breached that contract and/or the implied covenant undergirding the contract in three ways: (1) Facebook disabled her account even though she had not violated any Community Standards; (2) after disabling her account, Facebook destroyed content associated with the account; and (3) Facebook refused to give her any specifics as to how she had purportedly failed to follow Community Standards.

Docket No. 56 (Order at 11).

As to destruction of content ((2) above), the Court rejected that theory because

Ms. King has not pointed to any provision in the Terms of Service that suggests Facebook would not destroy content (or, conversely, that Facebook had an obligation to retain content). Moreover, the destruction of content, following the disabling of an account, does not injure a user's core contractual right – the right to use Facebook's social media platform.

Docket No. 56 (Order at 11). Notably, the Court dismissed the theory of liability with prejudice on the basis of futility. See Docket No. 56 (Order at 12).

On the other theories ((1) and (3) above), the Court found them plausible but agreed with Facebook that Ms. King had failed to allege cognizable remedies caused by the purported breach.

This, however, would only justify a dismissal of the claims for breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant without prejudice. Facebook argued still that there should be a dismissal with prejudice because of futility – i.e. , it had immunity from the claims under the Communications Decency Act ("CDA"). The Court agreed in part. Specifically, it agreed that Facebook had CDA immunity "for the contract/implied covenant to the extent that claim is based on Facebook's disabling of Ms. King's account" ((1) above). Docket No. 56 (Order at 22). However, the Court did not agree that there was CDA immunity for the implied covenant claim based on the failure to provide an explanation for the disabling of Ms. King's account ((3) above).

Accordingly, at the end of the day, the Court dismissed all of the claims pled in Ms. King's FAC with prejudice, except for the implied covenant claim based on Facebook's failure to provide an explanation for the disabling of her account. See Docket No. 56 (Order at 24). The Court allowed Ms. King to replead that claim if she could do so in good faith. See Docket No. 56 (Order at 24) ("[T]he claim as currently pled is not viable because Ms. King has not sufficiently pled any cognizable damages as a result of Facebook's conduct. Furthermore, Ms. King has waived any claim for specific performance."). The Court also noted that "[a]ny amendment must also take into account whether there is a reasonable basis to assert diversity jurisdiction (in particular, the amount in controversy) given the rulings made by the Court herein." Docket No. 56 (Order at 24).

B. SAC

In response to the Court order, Ms. King filed a SAC. In the operative SAC, Ms. King alleges as follows.

Ms. King had a personal account with Facebook for more than ten years until November 17, 2020, when she discovered that it had been disabled. See SAC ¶¶ 1, 10. Prior to the account being disabled, Ms. King had accumulated about 1,000 "friends." She had shared both political and nonpolitical information. See SAC ¶¶ 1, 11-12.

Ms. King discovered her Facebook account had a problem on or about November 17, 2020, when she tried to log into her account but was not successful. On November 19, she received a message from Facebook stating that her account had been disabled, but no reason was provided as to why. See SAC ¶¶ 1, 13-14. Below is the full message she received.

Your Account Has Been Disabled

For more information please visit the Help Center.

Your account was disabled on November 17, 2020. If you think your account was disabled by mistake you can submit more information via the Help Center for up to 30 days after your account was disabled. After that, your account will be permanently disabled and you will no longer be able to request a review.

SAC ¶ 14.

Mr. King – Ms. King's son who lives with her – tried to reinstate her account. They subsequently received a message from Facebook that the account had been disabled because " ‘it did not follow our Community Standards. This decision can't be reversed.’ " SAC ¶ 16. No specifics were provided about the purported violation of Community Standards, and, although the Kings thereafter made further inquiry, Facebook did not respond. See SAC ¶¶ 16-17.

Mr. King still persisted over the next few months. He received the following message from Facebook on or about March 9, 2021:

I am told that the review (I placed) was rejected and that the user (your mother) should have been told what is the policy area they were violating. Unfortunately I do not have much else to add. As for the downloading of data, it seems there should be a way to ask for your data. There should be a flow somewhere, but the person dealing with the problem was not sure what that was. Maybe a search can help? Let me know otherwise.

Sorry man, sorry it took so long and sorry we don't know much more, I suppose for FB to share with me would be absurd and not proper, so I suspect I cannot help you much more than this (which I am sure is not very satisfactory) [followed by a frowning emoji]

SAC ¶ 18.

According to Ms. King, she did not violate any Facebook Community Standards. See SAC ¶ 19.

Based on, inter alia , the above allegations, Ms. King has asserted the following causes of action:

(1) Breach of contract. Ms. King alleges that Facebook breached the contract between them – specifically, Facebook's Terms of Service ("TOS") – by (a) disabling her Facebook account, (b) failing to provide her with information to allow her to "appeal" Facebook's decision to disable her account, and (3) destroying all content in her account. See SAC ¶ 29.

(2) Breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Ms. King alleges that Facebook breached the implied covenant by failing to sufficiently explain how she had purportedly violated Community Standards and/or by failing to provide information about how she had purportedly violated Community Standards. See SAC ¶ 36. In addition, Facebook breached the implied covenant by destroying all content in her account. See SAC ¶ 37.

(3) Specific performance. Ms. King asks the Court to order Facebook to take certain action: (a) to provide sufficient information about why her account was disabled; (b) to provide her with access to the content on her account so that she can make a full accounting of the damages she has suffered; (c) to reinstate her account; (d) to reinstate her posts (both on her account and on the accounts of others); and (e) to reinstate her name and contact information on Facebook.com. See SAC ¶ 45.

Ms. King does not seek specific performance alone as a remedy. Rather, she also seeks damages. Ms. King alleges that she has suffered damages in excess of $75,000 as a result of Facebook's conduct. According to Ms. King, she has suffered, in fact, at least $100,000 in damages because, over the ten years she has had a Facebook account, she posted on Facebook pictures of trips that she has taken over the years (including at least ten international trips), and, when Facebook disabled her account, her photos – along with commentary she provided on the photos and comments made on those photos by her hundreds of Facebook friends – were destroyed. See SAC ¶ 24.

[Ms. King] estimates that each [international] trip cost an average of $10,000 (some significantly more because they lasted for several weeks each) so that it would cost her at least $100,000 to recreate all her photographs of these places and people she met and re-experience all of these places and people, not to mention the thousands of hours KING spent selecting hundreds of photographs from thousands of photographs to upload to her Facebook Account and making comments regarding the photographs when the events were fresh in her mind.

SAC ¶ 24.

II. DISCUSSIO...