## Facts

- A 14-year-old student, Michael Carneal, shot students at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, killing three and wounding others.
- The victims’ parents and estate administrators sued numerous video game companies, movie producers, and internet content providers.
- The complaint alleged Carneal regularly consumed defendants’ violent and sexually explicit video games, films, and internet content.
- Plaintiffs alleged the content “desensitized” Carneal to violence and caused the shooting.
- Plaintiffs asserted Kentucky-law claims for negligence and strict products liability (and also pleaded RICO, later abandoned on appeal).
- The district court dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6), finding no cognizable duty, lack of proximate cause due to a superseding criminal act, and that the media were not “products” under Kentucky product liability law.
- Plaintiffs appealed the negligence and products-liability dismissals.

## Issues

1. Whether, under Kentucky negligence law, media producers and distributors owed a duty of care to protect third parties from a consumer’s violent criminal acts allegedly influenced by expressive content.
2. Whether the shooter’s intentional criminal conduct constituted an intervening, superseding cause defeating proximate causation as a matter of law.
3. Whether violent video games, movies, and internet transmissions qualify as “products” under Kentucky strict products liability law.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal de novo.
- The court held Kentucky law did not recognize a negligence duty running from producers/distributors of broadly disseminated expressive content to unidentified third-party victims of a consumer’s later crime.
- The court held proximate causation failed because the shooter’s intentional criminal acts were an intervening, superseding cause.
- The court held the expressive media at issue were not “products” for Kentucky strict products liability purposes.

## Legal Principles

- Under Kentucky law, the existence and scope of a negligence duty is a question of law; duty generally is not extended to remote, attenuated risks to undefined third parties absent a special relationship or control.
- An intentional, independent criminal act by a third party ordinarily constitutes a superseding cause that breaks the chain of proximate causation, absent particularized circumstances making the criminal act legally foreseeable in a way that creates a protective duty.
- Kentucky strict products liability is directed at defects in products; expressive works such as films, video games, and internet content are not treated as “products” for strict liability based on alleged harmful ideas or messages.
- Courts may consider constitutional concerns when assessing whether state tort law would extend liability based on the content of protected expression, though liability may be resolved on duty and causation grounds.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit concluded that Kentucky tort law did not permit holding media companies liable for a school shooting allegedly influenced by violent or explicit content because the defendants owed no duty to the victims, the shooter’s intentional crime was a superseding cause, and the expressive media were not “products” subject to strict products liability.


James v. Meow Media, Inc., 300 F.3d 683 (6th Cir. 2002)