The High Court has ruled that Ireland does not have jurisdiction under EU rules to hear personal injury claims by three former content moderators against their German and Spanish employers merely because Meta/Facebook is also being sued here.
Ugur Yasar and Abuzar Talibov worked for CCC Essen Digital GmbH in Germany. Kyra Senen worked for CCC Barcelona Digital Services S.L.U. in Spain. All three allege that their content moderation work exposed them to excessively graphic and disturbing material, excessive workloads and inadequate support. Those allegations remain to be tried and were not decided in this judgment.
Their employers had been contracted by Facebook/Meta to provide content moderation services. The plaintiffs sued both their respective CCC employer and the Irish-domiciled Facebook/Meta entities in Ireland, relying on Article 8(1) of Brussels I (recast). That rule can allow several defendants to be sued together where claims are so closely connected that separate proceedings risk irreconcilable judgments.
Mr Justice Bradley held that threshold was not met. The CCC entities' potential liability arose principally from their responsibilities as employers, including the alleged duty to provide a safe system of work. The claim against Facebook/Meta was different. It alleged tortious responsibility arising from what the plaintiffs described as Meta's "unique and comprehensive" control over the content moderation system.
The judge found those claims did not arise from the same situation of fact and law in the sense required by Article 8(1). A foreign employer could be liable while Meta was not, or vice versa, without the judgments being legally irreconcilable.
The court also held that CCC Essen could not reasonably have foreseen being sued in Ireland merely because the platform owner's head office was here.
Separate issues arose for Senen and Talibov. Senen's employment contract contained an exclusive Barcelona jurisdiction clause. In Talibov's case, the court held that applying to PIAB did not mean an Irish court had already been "seised" of proceedings under EU law.
Final orders and costs were left for further hearing.