SCOVT affirms ruling that Vermont has personal jurisdiction over Meta for consumer protection claims brought by State .

State v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 2025 VT 51 [8/29/2025]

 CARROLL, J.   This interlocutory appeal requires us to evaluate the constitutionality of a Vermont court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants who allegedly violated the Vermont Consumer Protection Act (VCPA) through their design and operation of an online application.  We affirm. 

 

Broadly, the complaint alleges Meta intentionally designed Instagram to be addictive to teens, that Meta did so to increase advertisement revenue despite knowing the resulting negative effects on teens, and that Meta failed to take meaningful action to mitigate these harms while both actively minimizing and withholding its relevant internal research findings to maintain teens’ engagement with the application.  

Meta moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction under Vermont Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2).  The court denied Meta’s motion on the ground that Vermont has specific jurisdiction over Meta for these claims. The court granted permission to appeal its ruling on personal jurisdiction, and we accepted the appeal of this issue.  See V.R.A.P. 5(b)(1), (6).  

 

On appeal, Meta maintains that Vermont lacks specific personal jurisdiction over Meta and that the State’s complaint must be dismissed.  Specifically, Meta argues that specific personal jurisdiction is lacking because Meta’s contacts with Vermont were not purposefully directed at Vermont, none of the misrepresentations were made in or aimed at Vermont, and that the State’s claims do not arise out of or relate to any of the alleged connections Meta has with Vermont.  

 

We first address whether, taking the facts in the State’s complaint as true and considering them in the light most favorable to the State, there is a basis to demonstrate that Meta has sufficient minimum contacts with Vermont.

Here, the State is not relying solely on Instagram’s accessibility in Vermont.  Rather, Meta has purposefully availed itself of the Vermont market, including studying Vermont teen users to increase engagement with the application and engaging with Vermont businesses to sell targeted advertising space to target Vermonters.  See Burger King Corp., 471 U.S. at 473 (“[A] forum legitimately may exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident who ‘purposefully directs’ [its] activities toward forum residents.”).

 

Having concluded that the complaint provides enough facts to demonstrate that Meta has sufficient minimum contacts with Vermont, we address whether the claims arise out of or relate to Meta’s connections to Vermont.

Here, the State’s claims are related to Meta’s Vermont contacts.  The State asserts that Meta has cultivated and purposefully availed itself of the Vermont market for social media and that the use of Meta’s product and subsequent misrepresentations about such use has caused injury to Vermonters.   Meta argues that the State’s claims are not related to its contacts with Vermont because the State is not claiming that viewing advertisements is causing Vermonters to be addicted to Instagram. However, the relatedness requirement does not demand such a strict causal showing. While there may not be a direct causal relationship between the advertisements and the State’s claim, the State is claiming that Meta designed Instagram in a way to increase Vermont user engagement.  Thus, there is a sufficient relationship between the State’s claims and Meta’s connections to Vermont

 

Having established that Meta has minimum contacts with Vermont and those contacts relate to this cause of action, “these contacts may be considered in light of other factors to determine whether the assertion of personal jurisdiction would comport with fair play and substantial justice.”  Atl. Richfield Co., 2016 VT 22, ¶ 27 Meta’s only argument that asserting jurisdiction over it in this case would be unreasonable is that it “would blur the distinction between general and specific jurisdiction, subjecting Meta to personal jurisdiction in every forum in the country.”   Surely, a company cannot avoid jurisdiction in one state just because it avails itself of another, or many others, in the same way.  The State has undoubtedly met its burden of demonstrating sufficient facts to support jurisdiction in this case.

 

In sum, the civil division did not err in concluding that the allegations in the State’s complaint support a prima facie case for specific jurisdiction over Meta in Vermont.  Accordingly, we affirm the court’s decision to deny Meta’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.

 

Affirmed.