Maynard v. Snapchat, Inc.

• Decision Date: 30 October 2020
• Docket Number: A20A1218
• Citation: 357 Ga.App. 496,851 S.E.2d 128
• Parties: MAYNARD et al. v. SNAPCHAT, INC.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

357 Ga.App. 496

851 S.E.2d 128

MAYNARD et al.

v.SNAPCHAT, INC.

A20A1218

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

October 30, 2020

Bondurant Mixson & Elmore, Michael B. Terry, Naveen Ramachandrappa, Amanda K. Seals ;Law Office of Michael L. Neff, Michael L. Neff, D. Dwayne Adams, T. Shane Peagler, Susan M. Cremer ; Henningsen Injury Attorneys, Todd R. Henningsen, for Appellants.

Greenberg Traurig, Lori G. Cohen, Sean P. Jessee, Andrew Z. Smith, for Appellee.

Doyle, Presiding Judge.

Wentworth and Karen Maynard sued Snapchat, Inc., and Christal McGee to recover damages for injuries sustained in an automobile collision that allegedly resulted from McGee's use of the Speed Filter feature of Snapchat's smartphone application.¹ Following the grant of Snapchat's motion to dismiss, the Wentworths now appeal, contending that the complaint sufficiently alleges Snapchat's violation of its duty to use reasonable care in designing the Speed Filter product. We affirm under the facts of this case because Snapchat, Inc., did not owe a duty to the plaintiffs to alter its product design to prevent the injuries allegedly caused by driver Christal McGee while she was using Snapchat's Speed Filter application.

A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted should not be sustained unless (1) the allegations of the complaint disclose with certainty that the claimant would not be entitled to relief under any state of provable facts asserted in support thereof; and (2) the movant establishes that the claimant could not possibly introduce evidence within the framework of the complaint sufficient to warrant a grant of the relief sought. The appellate court reviews de novo the trial court's ruling on the defendant[’]s motion to dismiss, accepting as true all well-pled material allegations in the complaint and resolving any doubts in favor of the plaintiff[s].²

Similarly, the appellate court "review[s] de novo the trial court's decision on a motion for judgment on the pleadings, and ... construe[s] the complaint in a light most favorable to the appellant[s], drawing all reasonable inferences in [their] favor."³

The Maynards’ complaint, as amended, alleges that Snapchat is a social media company that makes products allowing users to create, upload, post, send, receive, share, and store digital photos and videos. Snapchat created and distributed a feature within its application, known as the Speed Filter, that allows Snapchat users to record their speed and overlay that speed onto a Snapchat photo or video. Snapchat users can then share on social media that photo or video with their speed as a "Snap," which is Snapchat's messaging product.

The Maynards’ complaint further alleges that around 10:15 one evening, McGee was driving with three passengers in her family's car. McGee began driving at an excessive rate of speed, attempting to reach 100 miles per hour so that she could capture that speed on a photo using the Speed Filter. A passenger checked the Speed Filter on her own phone, and it registered a speed in excess of 100 miles per hour. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to McGee, Wentworth Maynard had entered the same highway some distance ahead of McGee. Due to her distraction and unsafe speed, McGee drove into the back of Maynard's vehicle, injuring everyone involved.

The Maynards sued McGee and Snapchat, seeking damages for negligence and loss of consortium, as well as litigation expenses and punitive damages. The Maynards alleged that McGee drove negligently and that Snapchat negligently designed the Speed Filter, encouraging users to endanger themselves and others on the roadway. Snapchat moved to dismiss the complaint or for a judgment on the pleadings, and after a hearing, the trial court granted the motion. The trial court ruled that Snapchat "had no duty to alter the design of its mobile application to prevent McGee from driving recklessly or negligently." We granted the Maynards’ application for interlocutory appeal, and this appeal followed.

The Maynards argue that Snapchat violated its duty to use reasonable care in designing the Speed Filter product. We disagree because, based on the facts of this case, the allegedly negligent design claim does not fall within Snapchat's duty of care to the plaintiffs.

In order to have a viable negligence action, a plaintiff must satisfy the elements of the tort, namely, the existence of a duty on the part of the defendant, a breach of that duty, causation of the alleged injury, and damages resulting from the alleged breach of the duty. Specifically, a "legal duty" is the obligation to conform to a standard of conduct under the law for the protection of others against unreasonable risks of harm. But the innocence of the plaintiff is immaterial to the existence of the legal duty on the part of the defendant in that the plaintiff will not be entitled to recover unless the defendant did something that it should not have done, i.e., an action, or failed to do something that it should have done, i.e., an omission, pursuant to the duty owed the plaintiff under the law.

And such a duty can arise either from a valid legislative enactment, that is, by statute, or be imposed by a common law principle recognized in the case law. Nevertheless, as the Supreme Court of Georgia has recently held, there is no general legal duty to all the world not to subject others to an unreasonable risk of harm.⁴

The Maynards argue that they have sufficiently alleged a duty on the part of Snapchat to design the product differently to avoid the circumstances that caused the Maynards’ injuries. The dissent agrees, relying on the risk-utility balancing test identified in Banks v. ICI Americas ,⁵ which it correctly identifies as the test for negligence in a design defect case such as this one. In that test, a trier of fact would "evaluate design defectiveness under a test balancing the risks inherent in a product design against the utility of the product so designed."⁶ But the applicability of that test does not obviate the requirement to identify a legal duty, which presents a legal question for the court.⁷

Here, the complaint alleges that the injury was caused by McGee's conduct of misusing the Speed Filter while driving at an excessive rate of speed. Thus, any liability on the part of Snapchat is predicated on McGee's conduct. Under Georgia law, there is no "general legal duty to all the world not to subject others to an unreasonable risk of harm,"⁸ and

[a]s a general rule, there is no duty to control the conduct of third persons to prevent them from causing physical harm to others.... [T]he two exceptions to this rule are when a special relationship exists between the actor and another imposing a duty on the actor to control such person's conduct for the benefit of third persons, or a special relationship exists between the actor and another giving such person a right to protection.⁹

No such special relationship is alleged here.

Put simply, Georgia law does not impose a general duty to prevent people from committing torts while misusing a manufacturer's product. Although manufacturers have "a duty to exercise reasonable care in manufacturing their products so as to make products that are reasonably safe for intended or foreseeable uses,"¹⁰ this duty does not extend to the intentional (not accidental) misuse of the product in a tortious way by a third party.¹¹ The Maynards allege that Snapchat's design contains an inherent incentive to engage in risky behavior, but they only point to the attractiveness of the product itself, not to any specific reward system or status ranking predicated on misusing it while driving or generating higher speeds.¹² Further, as pointed out by the trial court, the Speed Filter function is use-neutral; it is equally functional when used while flying in an airplane, while riding as a passenger stuck in a traffic jam, or when misused in a dangerous way — it is up to the user to avoid dangerously misusing the application. This is because "virtually any article is capable of causing an injury when put to particular uses or misuses,"¹³ and imposing a duty on Snapchat to control or avoid McGee's allegedly tortious conduct extends the imposition of a legal duty beyond that which the law should recognize. "In fixing the bounds of duty, not only logic and science, but public policy play an important role."¹⁴

Instead of extending such a broad duty to manufacturers, Georgia has focused its public policy in this area on the conduct of drivers. For example, in an effort to stem a recent increase in roadway deaths and rising automobile insurance premiums, the Georgia General Assembly, after forming a committee to study the issue of distracted driving, passed in 2018 a new "hands-free law" that focuses on drivers’ conduct and prohibits them from even "[p]hysically hold[ing] or support[ing]" a smartphone while driving.¹⁵ Despite the inherent appeal and distracting nature of smartphone applications, Georgia thus far has not created a duty on the part of manufacturers to control third parties’ use of mobile phone applications while driving.

In other jurisdictions, courts have held that cell phone manufacturers do not have a duty to prevent the misuse of applications — even in at least one case where the manufacturer understood the risk of misuse. In California, for example, the Court of Appeals addressed a suit against Apple Inc., based on a negligent driver's use of Apple's FaceTime video communication application. Apple had applied for a patent for "lock-out" technology, which would prevent the use of the application while driving, noting in its patent application the increasing problem of driving while distracted by using a cell phone. The court ultimately held that Apple did not have a duty to control its users’ conduct while driving, stating that "even if it were foreseeable that cell phone use by drivers would result in accidents, foreseeability is not synonymous with duty; nor is it a...