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Harlandale ISD board authorizes joining class-action effort against social media companies, approves contingency-fee agreement
Summary
The Harlandale ISD Board of Trustees voted to join a nationwide class-action effort alleging social media companies have harmed students and to authorize a contingency-fee contract with outside counsel; board discussion followed a closed-session briefing and administrators said a public summary will be posted online.
The Harlandale ISD Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to join a class-action effort against social media companies and approved a contingency-fee agreement to hire outside counsel to pursue the case.
The board moved into closed session under the Texas Government Code chapter 551 before returning to open session and taking the votes. Trustee Moreno moved to "approve the presentation and action, as presented, in closed session," seconded by Trustee Ortiz; the motion carried. The board later approved a contingency-fee legal-services agreement with JCA Law, PLLC and Geta LP authorizing the board president to execute the contract.
Board members and district counsel described the litigation as a proposed class action filed in California that seeks to hold social media companies accountable for harms the district attributes to the platforms, including increased student behavioral and social-emotional needs and associated district costs for counseling and content filtering. Trustee Luna asked for clarification about the nature of the action; district counsel summarized the litigation's purpose and costs.
District counsel explained how the contingency arrangement works. "Contingency fee basically means that the school district does not pay an hourly rate. The school district only pays at the conclusion of the litigation based upon a percentage of whatever is recovered either through judgment or settlement," counsel said during the meeting. Counsel further described the proposed split: roughly 65% of a recovery to the school district and 35% to the lawyers, with class-action team expenses (described in the presentation as roughly 8%) borne by the firms and certain district expenses (described as roughly 2%) borne by the district.
The board asked administration to provide a public summary of the litigation materials. Counsel said a PowerPoint synopsis would be provided to the district for posting on the district website once attorney-client privileged material was removed.
No hours of litigation or fee guarantees were presented to the board; trustees emphasized that if the litigation does not recover funds, the district would not pay attorneys an hourly rate under the contingency arrangement.
The motions that carried were recorded in open session as required by Texas law; the transcript shows the motions and that both carried. Individual roll-call vote tallies for those motions were not specified in the public transcript.
The board did not provide further details about potential timelines for litigation or settlement during the public portion of the meeting. The district said it would place a non-privileged summary of the litigation materials on its website for community review.
