The lawyer for the parents of a Prince George boy who died of suicide after a 2023 sextortion said July 28 that the California company behind Snapchat is trying to escape accountability for failing to protect children from sexual predators.
In BC Supreme Court in Prince George, Claire Hunter opposed the application by lawyers for Snap Inc. to dismiss Nicola Smith and Ryan Cleland’s lawsuit against the social media company.
Smith and Cleland’s 12-year-old son, Carson, took his own life on Oct. 12, 2023 after falling prey to online sexual extortion.
Last October’s notice of civil claim seeks damages for negligence, failure to warn and negligent or fraudulent misrepresentation.
But Hunter said Snap, which reported US$5.9 billion revenue last year, wants to strike the claim and dismiss the action rather than file a statement of defence.
“(Snap) has attempted to cut it off at the knees, at this early stage of the proceeding, by filing this motion, by declining to plead or to make discovery of what it knows about the circumstances leading to Carson’s death,” Hunter told Justice Ronald Tindale.
“Instead, pursuing this application, Snap seeks to deny these grieving parents access to the truth-seeking function of the trial process.”
Hunter said Carson’s parents allegedly suffered “extreme psychological and other harms” after finding Cleland and witnessing unsuccessful efforts to save his life at home and in the hospital.
Hunter said what the couple knows comes from a heavily redacted RCMP investigation file that found Carson connected, via Snapchat, with a user in Nigeria who posed as a 17-year-old girl in New Jersey.
That user coerced Carson into sending intimate images of himself and then threatened to distribute those images if he did not transmit money or buy gift cards.
Hunter said the file does not indicate whether Snap co-operated with the RCMP.
The lawsuit said Carson had no history of mental, emotional or physical health issues or bullying. “He had lots of friends and enjoyed many hobbies,” it said.
It also said he had his own mobile phone, on which he downloaded Snapchat and had held an account since Sept. 14, 2023, despite being under the app’s minimum age of 13.
Earlier, defence lawyer Linda Plumpton told Tindale that the lawsuit does not meet specific legal criteria. She prefaced her submissions by offering Snap’s sympathy to Carson’s parents, then argued that the lawsuit contains gaps and flaws.
“The plaintiff’s claim does not rest on an argument that Snap owed users of the Snapchat app a duty of care,” Plumpton said. “Instead, it asserts that Snap owes a duty of care to parents of minor-aged Snapchat users who use the app in violation of the age limits that govern its use, and who had sought and who had been solicited to exchange sexually explicit material on Snapchat.”
The defendants claim Carson’s parents knew he was under the minimum age.
Plumpton said that after an unsuccessful demand for particulars — a formal request for facts — a litigation support specialist from Snap, Grant Shoemaker, provided an affidavit that said Carson’s account was created June 4, 2018. That was the same date his mother created an account and it was two days after his father created his own account.
“The records indicate that Carson’s age was represented to Snap, at the time the account was created, as being 36 years old,” Plumpton said. “That his birthday was stated to be May 17, 1982, which is the same year of birth of both plaintiffs, and nowhere in the exchange of correspondence that’s been filed in relation to this matter do the plaintiffs deny the truth of any of those facts.”
The hearing continues Wednesday, July 29.
In June, the Mark Carney Liberal government tabled the Digital Safety Act, a bill aimed at establishing an independent federal regulator and restricting children under age 16 from social media platforms. The minimum age would be subject to a regulatory exemption for services that demonstrate they have sufficient safeguards.
In October 2023, the BC NDP government passed the Intimate Images Protection Act to give courts the power to issue fines and order deletion of published images of sex acts, nudity or exposure of genitals.
BC Premier David Eby cited Carson as an inspiration for the Public Health Accountability and Cost Recovery bill in 2024. The proposed law threatened lawsuits against social media companies like the government had previously sued tobacco companies for compensation.
The NDP government paused the bill and convened an “online safety action table” involving Meta, Snap, TikTok and X.
By Bob Mackin, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Jul 28, 2026 at 18:35
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