Facebook content moderators cannot pursue actions for psychological injuries in Ireland

High Court reporters

Several Facebook "content moderators" cannot pursue legal actions in Ireland over their claims that they suffered serious psychological injuries from being exposed to graphic and violent content, the High Court has ruled. 

The cases, which related to people who worked under contracts with German and Spanish outsourcing firms, were brought in the Irish High Court because Facebook operator Meta, which is also a defendant in the actions, has its European headquarters in Dublin.  

One of the cases was brought by a man who worked for the German company CCC Essen Digital Gmbh between 2018 and 2019 in Essen under a contract of employment to which Meta was not a party but merely outsourced the work to CCC. 

A second case was brought by another man who also worked for CCC Essen, while a third was brought by a woman working for CCC Barcelona Digital Services SLU in Spain.

It is alleged in the personal injury proceedings that Meta engaged the CCC firms for the purposes of recruiting and hiring content moderators.

While they were employed by the CCC firms, which owed a duty of care, it is alleged they were working under the ultimate control and direction of Facebook/Meta.

All of the claims are denied.

The three cases were among around 30 against Facebook/Meta and against various other companies that were engaged to assist in the social media giant's content moderation services.

Of the 30 cases, about one-third involve a co-defendant outside of Ireland, while  20 cases involve a co-defendant in Ireland.

The CCC Essen and CCC Barcelona firms asked the High Court to first decide whether Ireland was the correct jurisdiction for hearing the personal injury actions the three had brought. 

The companies said Ireland was not the correct jurisdiction, while the plaintiffs argued that as Meta was the "anchor defendant", they should be heard here.

The three cases were considered by the High Court as representative for deciding the jurisdiction question. 

This was on the understanding that any decision was not binding directly on the remaining 27 cases but that it would provide some assistance in the resolution of the balance of the actions.

All three people were content moderators, later called "subject matter experts",  who ensured compliance with Meta/Facebook’s implementation standards for online content.

Mr Justice Conleth Bradley ruled Ireland did not have jurisdiction. 

He said the central focus of the jurisdiction issue, common to all three cases, concerned the application of an EU regulation governing the bringing of actions and issues related to the domicile of a defendant (the Brussels I Recast regulations).

The judge said he determined that the three plaintiffs had not demonstrated the requisite close connection and risk of irreconcilable judgments in Ireland as against Germany/Spain as per the requirements of Article 8(1) of the regulations.   

He therefore said he would make orders that the High Court of Ireland does not have the jurisdiction to hear the cases. 

On Wednesday, the judge said he would give judgment later on costs and on an application by the plaintiffs for leave to appeal his decision.