A giant thumbs-up button marks the entrace to the Facebook campus, located at 1601 Willow Road in Menlo Park, CA.

Kirkland & Ellis lawyers prevailed for Facebook on Friday in an Ohio suit that challenged how the social network responds to threats of violence.

Facebook was sued by Debbie Godwin, whose father Robert Godwin Sr. was murdered last year. His killer, Steve Stephens, posted a message on Facebook that alluded to his intent minutes before the murder. He did not know the victim, and the shooting appeared to be random.

Stephens posted a video of the killing on Facebook and subsequently committed suicide.

His Facebook message read: “FB my life for the pass year has really been fuck up!!! lost everything ever had due to gambling at the Cleveland Jack casino and Erie Casino…I not going to go into details but my breaking point really on some murder shit. FB you have minutes to tell me why shouldn be on deathrow!!!! dead serious #teamdeathrow.”

In January, Godwin sued Facebook in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court for negligence, failure to warn and wrongful death.

She alleged that Facebook defendants mine, collect and analyze the information they receive from users to sell to advertisers, including specific geographic locations, and that this activity is “distinct from the provision of any interactive computer services.”

“Facebook prides itself on having the ability to collect and analyze, in real time, and there after sell a vast array of information so that others can specifically identify and target users for a variety of business purposes,” her complaint stated. She alleged that Facebook should have used this information to alert police that Stephens posed a threat.

But Judge Timothy McCormick on Friday dismissed the suit, finding that although the court did have personal jurisdiction over Facebook, Godwin failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.

McCormick found that Facebook is a publisher under the Communications Decency Act—which provides safe harbor under Section 230.

“The complaint does not describe the active development of information,' the judge wrote. “Instead, the repeated use of phrases like 'collect and analyze' and 'organize and prioritize' are describing the application of neutral sorting mechanisms to the information uploaded by Facebook users. Therefore, Godwin has not alleged sufficient facts to demonstrate that Facebook, Inc. is not entitled to immunity on the grounds that it develops information in whole or in part.”

As for the common law duty to warn claim, McCormick wrote, “Something being suggestive of violent tendencies is not the equivalent of knowledge of violent tendencies.… [Facebook] gets to control how users like Stephens use their platform. It does not mean they have the ability to control Stephens' actions offline.”

The Kirkland team included K. Winn Allen and Craig Primis.