Court says Meta must turn over 'youth-user wellbeing' records to D.C. attorney general

Meta argued that the four communications in dispute reflected conventional legal advice on how to mitigate legal risk and to "modify or use careful language." Meta said the documents show communication about how to describe and present research and not to delete or falsify it.

But Judge Roy McLeese, writing for the appeals court, said Meta had failed to show Superior Court Judge Yvonne Williams clearly erred when she held that Meta "sought and heeded the advice of its counsel to obfuscate its potential liability during the related multidistrict litigation."

"As we have noted, we see no clear and indisputable error in the trial court’s ruling that there was probable cause that Meta used attorneys to further an alleged fraud," McLeese wrote.

He said the court was not ruling on whether Williams' crime-fraud finding was ultimately correct and stressed it was not barring Meta from later challenging the judge’s disclosure order.