Elmore pursues court action targeting Social Media companies

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Attorneys from the Law Office of John V. Elmore will be back in court this week to defend their case against social media platforms and others accused of being culpable in the 2022 mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket. The lawsuit alleges that social media platforms and other companies helped radicalize a gunman who perpetuated a massacre on Buffalo’s East Side. The gunman, then 18, killed 10 people and injured three others – all of them Black – on May 14, 2022, at the Tops grocery store on Jefferson Avenue.

“After we sued the companies that radicalized the gunman responsible for the horrific massacre, they tried to get the case dismissed,” said John V. Elmore, who founded the father-daugh ter firm that bears his name. “When that effort failed, they appealed. Now, we’re back in court to demonstrate that our claims are valid, and that the companies need to be held accountable.”

On Tuesday, May 20, the New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, Fourth Department, will hear arguments to determine whether the complaint by plaintiffs – the families of those slain in 2022 – is a valid legal claim that falls under the court’s juris diction. For the purposes of this review, the presiding three-judge panel must accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true. If the plaintiffs pre vail, defendants will still have future opportunities to seek dismissal.

“We’ll never stop fighting for our city, our community, our neighbors,” said Kristin Elmore-Garcia, Elmore’s legal partner and daughter. “We’re on the right side of justice against the multi-billion-dollar social media that have long profited from sowing division and hatred. We want to make sure that no one else suffers the horrors our clients and neighbors have endured.”

The father-daughter legal duo is known for tackling Buffalo’s toughest legal cases and making headlines nationwide. In March 2023, their firm, along with the Social Media Victims Law Center and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the owners of six social media platforms and streaming services; an Iowa-based manufacturer of body armor; a New York-based gun store; a Georgia-based manufacturer of custom gun accessories; and the parents of the Tops gunman. The lawsuit was the first of its kind to hold social media companies and firearms manufacturers accountable for mass shootings in America.

The 2023 lawsuit targeted social media companies and streaming services 4chan LLC; Amazon.com Inc. (owner of Twitch); Discord Inc.; Reddit Inc.; Snap Inc. (owner of Snapchat); Meta Platforms Inc. (owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp); Alpha bet Inc. (owner of Google and YouTube); Vintage Firearms LLC, a New York-based gun store; RMA Armament Inc., an Iowa-based manufacturer of body armor; Mean Arms, also known as Mean LLC, a Georgia-based manufacturer of custom gun accessories; and the parents of the Tops gunman. The suit argues that social media companies:

• “Profit from the racist, anti semitic, and violent material dis played on their platforms to maximize user engagement”

• Use platforms that are “sophisticated products designed to be addictive to young users and they specifically directed (the Buffalo gunman) to further platforms or postings that indoctrinated him with ‘white replacement theory.’”

In early 2024, a New York State judge dismissed efforts by the social media companies to have the lawsuit dismissed. Erie County Supreme Court Justice Paula Feroleto ruled that the lawsuit may proceed, saying, “The Court has determined that the complaint sufficiently pleads viable causes of action,” she wrote in her ruling, which came less than a month after she rejected similar bids to dismiss related lawsuits against social media company 4chan and gun lock manufacturer Mean LLC. Although Feroleto’s ruling reassured the families of those killed in the Tops murders that justice will be served, the companies immediately appealed Feroleto’s ruling. All related briefings concluded earlier this year.

On Tuesday, Elmore will state the legal arguments to hold the social media companies culpable in the 2022 mass shooting. Elmore Garcia will do the same against Mean Arms.