Snap CEO must be deposed in lawsuit claiming 'speed filter' caused crash

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel must be deposed in a lawsuit claiming that the company's "speed filter" on Snapchat encouraged reckless driving, leading to a car crash. The deposition will last five hours and will focus on Spiegel's personal knowledge of the filter. The case was originally dismissed but was revived by the Georgia Supreme Court. The plaintiff's lawyer called the deposition order "a significant step in the march to justice."

By Brendan Pierson

July 18 (Reuters) - Snap (SNAP.N) CEO Evan Spiegel must submit to a deposition in a lawsuit by the victim of a 2015 car crash accusing the social media company of encouraging reckless driving with a filter that displayed users’ speed on their Snapchat social media posts.

Judge Josh Thacker, of the State Court of Spalding County, Georgia, ruled on Wednesday that the deposition was warranted because, according to Snap’s discovery responses, Spiegel is one of two people still at the company who was involved in creating the speed filter, and the sole person who approved its eventual removal.

Thacker ruled that Spiegel’s deposition will last five hours, in light of the “significant responsibilities and the demands on his time,” but declined to limit its scope beyond saying it would be about the chief executive’s personal knowledge.

High-level corporate executives are often shielded from depositions in lawsuits by the so-called apex doctrine, which proponents say is needed to prevent harassing discovery demands. However, Georgia’s Supreme Court in 2022 refused to adopt the doctrine, joining several other states.

Michael Neff of Neff Injury Law, who represents crash victim Wentworth Maynard and his wife Karen Maynard, called Thacker’s order “a significant step in the march to justice.”

Snap did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the lawsuit, the driver of the car that rear-ended Maynard’s, Christal McGee, told her passengers moments before the crash that she was trying to get to 100 mph in order to post a photo on Snapchat using the speed filter. McGee’s Mercedes was traveling at an estimated 107 mph when she hit Maynard’s Mitsubishi Outlander, which was flung into an embankment.

McGee went on to post a picture of herself after the crash captioned “lucky to be alive,” and eventually pleaded no contest to a criminal charge of causing a serious injury with her vehicle. Wentworth Maynard was left with permanent brain injuries, according to the lawsuit.

Thacker originally dismissed the case, finding that Snap could not be liable for McGee’s intentional misuse of its product, and an appeals court affirmed that ruling. But the Georgia Supreme Court in 2022 revived the case, finding that intentional misuse does not create a blanket shield from liability and that manufacturers must “use reasonable care … to reduce reasonably foreseeable risks” posed by their products.

The case is Maynard v. McGee, State Court of Spalding County, Georgia, No. 16SV-89.

For plaintiffs: Michael Neff of Neff Injury Law

For Snap: Scott Masterson and Paul Borr of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith

Crash victim gets new chance to prove Snap ‘speed filter’ caused accident

Why GM’s Mary Barra got no special deposition treatment from Georgia Supreme Court