Section 230 Defeats Underage User’s Lawsuit Against Grindr–Doll v. Pelphrey

October 26, 2024 · by · in Content Regulation, Derivative Liability

This is another lawsuit against Grindr claiming that Grindr made it too easy for underage users to sign up and meet other users for sex. Thus, the plaintiff alleges “Grindr should have prevented C.D. from communicating with them by implementing stricter age-verification procedures.” The court completely dismisses the case per Section 230.

To get around Section 230’s obvious application dating back to cases like Doe v. MySpace from 2008, the plaintiff made the now-standard modern argument that the Grindr’s lack of age authentication “is a design defect and Defendant Grindr had a duty to take steps to keep children from accessing this app” (citing Doe v. Internet Brands and Lemmon v. Snap). The court responds:

Grindr’s match function relies upon and publishes a user’s profile and geolocation data, which is third party content generated by the user. If Grindr had not published the user-provided content, C.D. and the adult men would never have met, and the sexual assaults never would have occurred

To be fair, other courts have rejected this “but for” causation analysis, though I think they are wrong.

The plaintiff argued “Grindr could fulfill its alleged duty by changing its App features without involving third-party content.” The court says this is different from Lemmon because “the harm C.D. suffered did not flow solely from product software. Rather the harm suffered by C.D. is directly related to the geolocation and content provided by the users, which facilitates the match, direct messages, in-person meetings, and C.D.’s assault.”

The court concludes:

There is no doubt that what happened to C.D. was heinous. In reaching their decisions, the Courts above also had victims who suffered from intolerable acts perpetrated against them. However, these Courts have consistently found the protections of § 230 applicable and have dismissed the cases.

I suspect this was the Kentucky circuit court judge’s first time hearing a Section 230 case, and he navigated Section 230’s complex doctrines and the plaintiff’s murky 230-workaround arguments thoughtfully and precisely. A commendation to Judge Jerry D. Crosby II.

Case Citation: Doll v. Pelphrey, 2024 Ky. Cir. LEXIS 84 (Ky. Cir. Ct. Oct. 18, 2024). News coverage of the complaint filing.

Prior Blog Posts About Grindr