What does a signed social media addiction case cost to acquire right now?

On the platform track (MDL 3047 / JCCP 5255), MTAA-managed Meta campaigns are producing leads and signed cases at the costs shown above, measured over a trailing 30-day window. Both figures are computed from live campaign data and change weekly. The seven-day figures move faster and are less reliable, because signed-case attribution lags lead delivery — a case signed this week may have been generated three weeks ago.

Is it too late to enter this tort?

Filings are still climbing, and the statute of limitations for minors is tolled in most states until the claimant turns 18, which keeps the eligible population open far longer than a typical product tort. The relevant risk is not the door closing; it is that no global settlement framework exists yet, so a firm entering now carries acquisition cost against an unresolved case value.

Is there an established settlement value per case?

No. The only verified figures are the $6.0M K.G.M. state-court jury verdict from March 25, 2026, which is on appeal, and the reported combined settlement of roughly $27M in the Breathitt County school-district bellwether. Neither establishes a per-plaintiff range for individual personal-injury claims. Any specific per-case dollar estimate for this litigation is speculative, and MTAA does not publish one.

What qualifies a claimant?

The core profile is a claimant who was a minor during heavy use of one or more named platforms and who has a documented mental health diagnosis and treatment history connected to that period. Qualification is records-driven: diagnosis, treatment dates, and evidence of usage pattern. This is a heavier intake burden than a typical device tort, and it is the main reason lead-to-signed conversion sits where it does rather than higher.

What is the difference between the platform track and the Roblox track?

The platform track covers Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube and is consolidated in MDL 3047 with a parallel California state coordination. The Roblox filings are separate, earlier in their lifecycle, carry no MDL number, and currently acquire at a materially higher cost per lead with no signed-case history yet. They are two different bets, and they should be budgeted separately.

How many cases are pending?

Pending federal actions in MDL 3047 and the trailing monthly growth rate are shown above, computed from JPML pending-action reports. Alongside the individual personal-injury cases, roughly 1,200 school-district actions and attorney general suits from more than 40 states are proceeding on a separate track.

Market briefs · Mass Tort Ad Agency

Social media addiction: what a signed case costs, and where the docket stands

Name: Social media addiction: what a signed case costs, and where the docket stands — acquisition benchmarks
Creator: Mass Tort Ad Agency

Defendants have settled out of every bellwether they could. Filings keep climbing. Here is what claimant acquisition actually costs this week, measured from live campaign delivery, and what a firm entering now is buying into.

Figures computed Jul 23, 2026 08:02 UTC · Brief reviewed Jul 23, 2026 · MDL 3047 (N.D. Cal.) · JCCP 5255 (LA Superior)

Cost per lead — 30d

$60.51

4,584 leads · $277,370 spend

Cost per signed case — 30d

$433.38

832 signed · 18.2% of leads

Pending federal actions

2,893

+229 in the last 30d · +120/mo avg since 03-02

01The read

Four defendants have now paid rather than let a jury see the full evidentiary record twice. Snap and TikTok settled out of the first state bellwether days before opening statements. The first federal bellwether — a Kentucky school district — never seated a jury at all, because all four defendants settled, reportedly for around $27M combined. In the second state bellwether, YouTube, TikTok and Snap have each settled out, leaving Meta to face the jury alone.

The one time a jury did reach a verdict, it found for the plaintiff and added punitive damages. That is the entire public evidentiary record on how this theory plays to a jury: one for one.

For a firm evaluating entry, the practical signal is that defendants are treating jury exposure as expensive, and there is still no global settlement framework to price inventory against. Both of those things are true at once, and the second one is the reason this brief has a risk section.

02Acquisition economics

Computed from live Meta campaign delivery across MTAA-managed accounts. Figures refresh daily and will not match what you read here in a month.

Track	CPL 30d	CPL 7d	CPSC 30d	Campaigns
Platform track Meta (Instagram/Facebook), TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube — MDL 3047 / JCCP 5255	$60.51	$61.39	$433.38	2
Roblox track Roblox — separate filings, earlier stage, no MDL number assigned	$117.42	$120.17	No signed data	1

Method: spend, leads and signed cases are summed across qualifying campaigns in each trailing window, then divided. A campaign qualifies when it carries confirmed tort attribution and reports signed-case outcomes back through intake. The 30-day figures here rest on 2 qualifying campaigns — a thin sample, and you should treat it as directional rather than as a market-wide index.

Read the 30-day column, not the 7-day. Signed-case attribution lags lead delivery by two to four weeks, so any short window mixes this week's spend with earlier weeks' signings and reports a cost per signed case that is too favorable.

The platform track is the mature buy: cost per lead is stable across both windows, and it has enough signed-case history to compute a real cost per signed case. The Roblox track currently acquires leads at roughly twice the cost with no signing history behind it yet. That is normal for an earlier-stage filing posture, but it means the second track is an unpriced bet and should carry its own budget line rather than being blended into the first.

03Docket scoreboard

Date	Defendant / party	Disposition	Amount
Oct 6, 2022	Meta, ByteDance, Snap, Google	Consolidated before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers JPML transfer order. Discovery before Judge Peter H. Kang.	—
Jan 22, 2026	Snap	Settled pre-trial, confidential No admission of liability.	Undisclosed
Jan 27, 2026	TikTok / ByteDance	Settled pre-trial, confidential Settled as jury selection began.	Undisclosed
Mar 25, 2026	Meta, Google	Plaintiff verdict Liability allocated 70% Meta / 30% Google. First jury verdict in the litigation.	$6.0M total, incl. $3M punitive
Jun 10, 2026	Meta, Google	Post-trial defense motions denied Verdict stands at trial level; appeal pending.	—
May 15, 2026	Snap, TikTok, YouTube	Settled pre-trial First school-district bellwether. Amount reported, not court-confirmed.	Part of ~$27M combined
Jun 15, 2026	Meta	Settled on eve of trialReported Scheduled first federal bellwether. No jury was ever seated.	~$27M combined (reported)
Jun 23, 2026	YouTube / Google	Settled pre-trial	Undisclosed
Jun 30, 2026	TikTok / ByteDance	Settled pre-trial	Undisclosed
Jul 20, 2026	Snap	Tentative settlementReported Reported tentative; confirm against docket before relying on it.	Undisclosed
Jul 27, 2026	Meta	Trial scheduled — Meta sole remaining defendantScheduled Second jury test of the core liability theory.	—

Items marked Reported come from press accounts rather than a court-confirmed figure. Items marked Scheduled have not occurred. Confirm anything you intend to rely on against the docket.

04Filing velocity

Pending actions in MDL 3047, from JPML reports. The trajectory matters more than any single reading: this has been one of the fastest-growing dockets in the federal system through 2026, and growth accelerated after the March verdict.

As of	Pending actions	Source
Mar 2, 2026	2,407	JPML pending-actions report
Apr 1, 2026	2,465	JPML pending-actions report
Jun 1, 2026	2,664	JPML pending-actions report
Jul 1, 2026	2,893	JPML pending-actions report

05Qualification standard

What MTAA screens for before a lead is delivered as a qualified claimant:

Claimant was under 18 during the period of heavy platform use.
A documented mental health diagnosis — the recognized profile includes depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-harm.
Treatment history with dates, sufficient to connect the diagnosis to the usage period.
Identifiable platform and usage pattern, not a general claim of screen time.
No prior representation on the same claim.

This is a records-heavy qualification compared with a device or pharmaceutical tort, where a product name and an implant date carry most of the burden. It is the main driver of the lead-to-signed ratio, and a firm that plans intake capacity on device-tort assumptions will under-resource this one.

Running alongside the individual personal-injury cases are roughly 1,200 school-district actions and attorney general suits from more than 40 states. Those resolve on their own track and do not establish per-plaintiff value, but they do shape the defendants' total exposure and therefore their appetite to settle.

06Risks

No established case value

One verdict, on appeal, and a set of confidential settlements. There is no range to underwrite against. A firm entering now is spending known dollars per signed case against an unknown recovery.

The verdict is not final money

The $6.0M K.G.M. award survived post-trial motions at the trial level and is on appeal. Treat it as evidence about how juries respond to the theory, not as a settled valuation input.

Long carry

Minority tolling keeps the claimant pool open, which is good for volume and bad for cash flow. Cases signed today may sit for years. This tort suits a firm that can fund a long hold, and it punishes one that cannot.

Platform risk on the buy side

The most efficient acquisition channel for this tort is Meta, and Meta is a defendant in it. Ad policy enforcement is a live operational risk, and creative that would clear review in another tort will not necessarily clear it here. Campaigns have to be built to a stricter standard from the start, not corrected after a rejection.

Subject-matter sensitivity

The claimant population includes minors in active mental health crisis, and the ad surface reaches them as well as their parents. MTAA builds these campaigns to address parents and households rather than to describe symptoms back to a viewer. That is partly a policy requirement and partly the right way to run it.

07Questions firms ask

What does a signed social media addiction case cost to acquire right now?: On the platform track (MDL 3047 / JCCP 5255), MTAA-managed Meta campaigns are producing leads and signed cases at the costs shown above, measured over a trailing 30-day window. Both figures are computed from live campaign data and change weekly. The seven-day figures move faster and are less reliable, because signed-case attribution lags lead delivery — a case signed this week may have been generated three weeks ago.
Is it too late to enter this tort?: Filings are still climbing, and the statute of limitations for minors is tolled in most states until the claimant turns 18, which keeps the eligible population open far longer than a typical product tort. The relevant risk is not the door closing; it is that no global settlement framework exists yet, so a firm entering now carries acquisition cost against an unresolved case value.
Is there an established settlement value per case?: No. The only verified figures are the $6.0M K.G.M. state-court jury verdict from March 25, 2026, which is on appeal, and the reported combined settlement of roughly $27M in the Breathitt County school-district bellwether. Neither establishes a per-plaintiff range for individual personal-injury claims. Any specific per-case dollar estimate for this litigation is speculative, and MTAA does not publish one.
What qualifies a claimant?: The core profile is a claimant who was a minor during heavy use of one or more named platforms and who has a documented mental health diagnosis and treatment history connected to that period. Qualification is records-driven: diagnosis, treatment dates, and evidence of usage pattern. This is a heavier intake burden than a typical device tort, and it is the main reason lead-to-signed conversion sits where it does rather than higher.
What is the difference between the platform track and the Roblox track?: The platform track covers Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube and is consolidated in MDL 3047 with a parallel California state coordination. The Roblox filings are separate, earlier in their lifecycle, carry no MDL number, and currently acquire at a materially higher cost per lead with no signed-case history yet. They are two different bets, and they should be budgeted separately.
How many cases are pending?: Pending federal actions in MDL 3047 and the trailing monthly growth rate are shown above, computed from JPML pending-action reports. Alongside the individual personal-injury cases, roughly 1,200 school-district actions and attorney general suits from more than 40 states are proceeding on a separate track.

MTAA builds and operates the Meta acquisition campaigns behind these numbers. If you are evaluating entry, the useful next step is a look at current inventory and delivery capacity in your states — start there. Acquisition cost across every tort we benchmark is on the brief index.