Product Liability Update - September 2025

Does Product Liability Have Physical Boundaries?  

Plaintiffs are increasingly advancing product liability theories in the digital sphere, targeting social media platforms and service-oriented applications.  Courts faced with these claims are addressing novel questions about whether, and to what extent, product liability principles developed for tangible goods apply to digital platforms.  Two key threshold issues frequently arise:  whether the claims concern a “product,” and whether they assert plausible product defect theories.

Service Issue or Product Defect?

In traditional product liability cases, the questions whether a claim concerns a “product” and whether it alleges a product defect are often readily answered.  However, in cases involving online platforms and digital technologies, these interrelated issues have become central.  Courts, particularly in the Ninth Circuit, have rejected categorical classifications of online platforms or applications as either products or services.  Instead, they have adopted a more nuanced approach that considers the nature of the alleged defect, its similarities and differences to physical products, and whether it aligns with the types of issues traditionally addressed by product liability law.

For example, in In re Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Product Liability Litigation, a series of cases brought on behalf of minors against operators of social media platforms (including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat), plaintiffs alleged design defects based on platform features such as continuous content feeds, algorithmic content timing, content length limitations, notifications, filters, lack of parental controls, and the absence of time restrictions.  The plaintiffs claimed these design choices contributed to deterioration in minors’ physical, mental, and emotional health.  The court rejected proposed categorical tests for determining whether these features constituted “products”—such as labels, tangibility, or similarities to software or expressive content—and instead analyzed whether the challenged aspects had tangible analogues.  Applying this framework, the court found, for example, that parental controls and age verification systems had real-world analogues (such as physical parental locks on medications and software parental locks on televisions) and thus qualified as products.  Likewise, time limits and restraints were analogized to tangible devices like timers and alarms.

Similarly, in In re Uber Technologies, Inc., Passenger Sexual Assault Litigation, 745 F. Supp. 3d 869 (N.D. Cal. 2024), passengers brought product liability claims alleging failures to mitigate risks of sexual harassment, assault, kidnapping, and other misconduct.  Alleged defects included the absence of same-gender driver selection options, “safe ride” algorithmic matching, enhanced GPS-based safety alert systems, stricter driver background checks, and timely in-ride support.  The court evaluated whether these claims targeted aspects of Uber’s app that had “plausible analogues in tangible products.”  Allegations such as the lack of GPS-based alerts for route deviations or prolonged stops were considered product-focused because they paralleled features available in tangible devices, and the absence of gender-matching options was treated as a design-based defect in the app’s user interface.

In contrast, the court determined that claims relating to Uber’s background check practices, customer support, and zero-tolerance policy were tied to Uber’s service operations, not the app itself, and thus fell outside the scope of product liability law. Additionally, the allegation that Uber failed to employ a predictive “safe ride” matching algorithm was found not to involve a feature with a tangible product analogue.

Unsettled Questions

The law in this area remains unsettled.  Given the complex and multifaceted nature of digital platforms and applications, these threshold questions are likely to remain active areas of litigation until appellate courts provide binding guidance.