Liapes v. Facebook

In 2020, Outten & Golden and its co-counsel filed Liapes v. Facebook, a lawsuit that challenges an advertising platform that lets companies treat users disparately based on their protected characteristics.

The plaintiff, Samantha Liapes, is a 48-year-old woman and regular Facebook user, who was interested in learning about insurance products via ads on her news feed. She was unable to apply for a quote and possibly obtain a policy because she could not view several life insurance ads posted on Facebook due to her age or gender.

Ms. Liapes claims that Facebook creates and uses various online advertising tools — some with input from advertisers — which facilitate this type of discrimination.

In September 2023, the California Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s dismissal of the suit – a watershed decision that was hailed by the ACLU, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and other civil rights activists. In doing so, it commented that Facebook, which receives more than 98% of its revenue from advertisers, makes the final decisions about which users will receive the ads, and “expressly uses age and gender” in those decisions.

In January of 2024, the Supreme Court of California denied Facebook’s request to review the California Court of Appeals’ decision.

“Facebook, which has millions of advertisers and reaches billions of users, shouldn’t be immune to accountability for its discriminatory advertising practices,” said Adam T. Klein from Outten & Golden LLP. “We’re pleased with the California Supreme Court’s decision, and look forward to arguing this important civil rights case on its merits.”

Ms. Liapes is represented by Outten & Golden attorneys Adam T. Klein, Jahan C. Sagafi, Christopher McNerney, Pooja Shethji, and Courtney Hinkle, and attorneys from Peter Roman Friedman Law, Gupta Wessler PLLC, and Aqua Terra Aeris Law Group.