{"id":"f5b33b5b-0eeb-48ce-a54b-b5f7139ba063","slug":"snap-lemmon-speed-filter-fatality","kind":"fatality","headline":"Ninth Circuit allowed negligent design lawsuit against Snap over Snapchat Speed Filter in fatal high-speed crash","summary":"The surviving parents of two boys who died in a high-speed car accident alleged that Snap negligently designed Snapchat's Speed Filter to incentivize dangerous driving. The Ninth Circuit reversed a district court dismissal in May 2021, ruling that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does not immunize Snap from product-design liability claims. The case was remanded for further proceedings.","occurredAt":"2017-05-15T00:00:00.000Z","reviewStatus":"unreviewed","modelId":null,"deploymentId":null,"companyId":"dde4cfaa-af11-4903-be09-d5088c4f5066","aliases":[],"collisionRisk":"none","reviewNote":null,"severity":"serious","rootCauseCategory":null,"rootCauseDetail":null,"affectedUnitsCount":null,"affectedUnitsBasis":null,"remediationStatus":null,"regulatoryAction":"inquiry_opened","regulatoryBody":"9th Circuit Court of Appeals","propertyDamageEstimateUsd":null,"damageEstimateBasis":null,"bodilyInjurySeverity":null,"fatalityCount":null,"lossCostClass":null,"sourceQualityTier":null,"oshaRecordable":null,"oshaCaseNumber":null,"rootCauseDisclosed":null,"publicDisclosureDate":null,"insuranceClaimPublic":null,"createdAt":"2026-07-15T23:06:16.323Z","updatedAt":"2026-07-15T23:06:28.838Z","model":null,"deployment":null,"company":{"id":"dde4cfaa-af11-4903-be09-d5088c4f5066","name":"Snap Inc","slug":"snap","description":"Snap Inc (NYSE: SNAP) is a camera and augmented reality company headquartered in Santa Monica, California, founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown. The company is best known for the Snapchat messaging app, Bitmoji, and its Spectacles line of smart glasses. In June 2026, Snap unveiled Specs, its first standalone AR glasses powered by dual Qualcomm Snapdragon processors with a 51-degree field of view, targeting the post-smartphone computing era.","status":"public (NYSE: SNAP)","founded":2011,"hq":"Santa Monica, California, USA","fundingTotal":null,"type":"both","reviewStatus":"reviewed","lifecycleState":"active","supersededByCompanyId":null,"sources":[{"url":"https://newsroom.snap.com/sps-2024-spectacles-snapos","title":"Snap unveils 5th-gen Spectacles + Snap OS (developer-only $99/mo)","sourceName":"Snap (newsroom)"},{"url":"https://www.uploadvr.com/snap-spectacles-5-ar/","title":"Snap Spectacles 5 standalone AR (dev-only subscription, US)","sourceName":"UploadVR"},{"url":"https://www.maginative.com/article/snap-unveils-standalone-ar-spectacles-announces-openai-partnership-2/","title":"Snap Spectacles + OpenAI partnership (multimodal AI Lenses)","sourceName":"Maginative"},{"url":"https://investor.snap.com/news/news-details/2025/Snap-to-Launch-New-Lightweight-Immersive-Specs-in-2026/default.aspx","title":"Snap to launch lightweight consumer 'Specs' in 2026 (separate future product)","sourceName":"Snap (investor relations)"},{"url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_Inc.","label":"Snap Inc. - Wikipedia","title":"Snap Inc. - Wikipedia","mediaType":"article","sourceName":"Wikipedia"},{"url":"https://newsroom.snap.com/introducing-specs-augmented-reality-glasses","label":"Introducing SPECS Augmented Reality Glasses","title":"Introducing SPECS Augmented Reality Glasses","mediaType":"article","sourceName":"Snap Newsroom"}],"keyFacts":[{"label":"CEO","value":"Evan Spiegel"},{"label":"CTO","value":"Bobby Murphy"},{"label":"Chairman","value":"Michael Lynton"},{"label":"Ticker","value":"NYSE: SNAP"},{"label":"IPO date","value":"2017-03-02"},{"label":"Revenue (2025)","value":"$5.93B"},{"label":"Net income (2025)","value":"-$460M"},{"label":"Employees","value":"5,261 (2025)"},{"label":"Financial stage","value":"Public (NYSE: SNAP, growth stage)"}],"aliases":["Snap","Snapchat","Snap Spectacles"],"collisionRisk":"low","reviewNote":null,"atsProvider":null,"atsSlug":null,"factoryLocations":null,"manufacturingCapacity":null,"orgType":null,"burnSignal":null,"litigationEvents":null,"insurancePostureDisclosed":null,"unitEconomicsDisclosed":null,"createdAt":"2026-06-03T19:52:44.161Z","updatedAt":"2026-07-15T23:06:29.226Z"},"derived":{"status":"active"},"sources":[{"id":"70ca61d9-002b-42bf-95bc-2fc9f70fca6b","incidentId":"f5b33b5b-0eeb-48ce-a54b-b5f7139ba063","url":"https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/20-55295/20-55295-2021-05-04.html","label":"Lemmon v. Snap, Inc., No. 20-55295 (9th Cir. 2021)","publishedAt":"2021-05-04T00:00:00.000Z","notes":null,"title":"Lemmon v. Snap, Inc., No. 20-55295 (9th Cir. 2021)","sourceName":"Justia (US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit)","mediaType":"article","videoId":null,"channel":null,"durationSec":null,"timestampSec":null,"createdAt":"2026-07-15T23:06:17.082Z","updatedAt":"2026-07-15T23:06:17.082Z"}],"responses":[],"statusEvents":[],"jsonLd":{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://registry.deploy.report/incidents/snap-lemmon-speed-filter-fatality","url":"https://registry.deploy.report/incidents/snap-lemmon-speed-filter-fatality","headline":"Ninth Circuit allowed negligent design lawsuit against Snap over Snapchat Speed Filter in fatal high-speed crash","description":"The surviving parents of two boys who died in a high-speed car accident alleged that Snap negligently designed Snapchat's Speed Filter to incentivize dangerous driving. The Ninth Circuit reversed a district court dismissal in May 2021, ruling that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does not immunize Snap from product-design liability claims. The case was remanded for further proceedings.","identifier":"f5b33b5b-0eeb-48ce-a54b-b5f7139ba063","datePublished":"2017-05-15T00:00:00.000Z","articleSection":"fatality","publisher":{"@id":"https://deploy.report/#organization"},"author":{"@id":"https://deploy.report/#organization"}},"framework_metadata":{"framework_schema_version":"0.1.0","verification_status":"unreviewed","maturity_stage":null,"lifecycle_state":null,"architectural_position":{"cohort":null,"sub_cohorts":[]},"within_cohort_verified_vs_claimed_pair":null,"cap_flags":[],"verification_depth":{"sources_count":1,"primary_source_types":[]}}}