SIGNIFICANT CASE SUMMARY

Washington, DC Significant Case Summary

In re Meta Platforms, Inc., et. al.,
District of Columbia Court of Appeals
Case No. No. 26-OA-0001

Decided: July 16, 2026

The D.C. Court of Appeals denied Meta Platforms, Inc. and Instagram, LLC’s petition for a writ of mandamus because they failed to make a showing that they have “a clear and indisputable right to have the writ issue” in a discovery dispute.

Background

The District of Columbia sued Meta Platforms, Inc, and Instagram, LLC (collectively hereinafter “Meta”) alleging violations of the Consumer Protection Procedures Act. The complaint alleges that Meta engages in unfair and deceptive practices by developing addictive features designed to trick users, especially children, into spending more time on Meta platforms by misrepresenting to consumers that its social media platforms are safe for children. This matter is currently in the discovery phase in the D.C. Superior Court, which is the trial court in the District of Columbia. Meta has produced 2.5 million documents. Meta subsequently issued “clawback” notices to D.C., seeking the return of four documents, claiming privilege. The four documents at issue are communications amongst Meta researchers and lawyers about internal research related to youth-user well-being.

D.C. requested the trial court to review the documents in camera claiming the documents would be unprivileged under the crime-fraud exception. The trial court granted D.C.’s request for in camera review of the documents and held the documents were subject to the crime-fraud exception as the documents were dated after related multidistrict litigation had begun, and the documents described attorney communications that ‘explicitly advised Meta researchers to ‘remove,’ ‘block,’ ‘button[] up,’ ‘limit,’ and ‘update’ their research” in order to “specifically limit Meta’s potential liability, while Meta was already the subject of a related multidistrict litigation.” Meta filed a Motion to Reconsider which was denied. The trial court ordered Meta to produce the documents within seven days. Before producing the documents, Meta filed a petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to vacate both trial court orders and a motion asking the court to review the documents and the sealed declarations from Meta employees, ex parte.

Holding

The D.C. Court of Appeals held that Meta failed to establish a clear and indisputable right to relief, and denied the petition for a writ of mandamus, but the court did not decide whether the trial court’s crime-fraud ruling was legally and factually correct. The court concluded that the record does not indisputably foreclose the conclusions that there was probable cause to believe that Meta engaged attorneys to advise its researchers to modify or conceal research projects, or findings that Meta may have believed show or did show harm to teenage users, and that the researchers acted on the advice of the attorneys which furthered the ongoing scheme to misrepresent material facts, which have a tendency to mislead consumers in violation of the Consumer Protection Procedures Act. The Court found that Meta failed to demonstrate that the trial court’s factual findings were not clearly and indisputably erroneous and denied the petition for a writ of mandamus.

Questions about this case can be directed to Darshi Shah, at (771) 210-5939 or dshah@tthlaw.com.