(ABC 6 News) — A Minnesota tribal nation has filed a first of its kind lawsuit against social media companies.

The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is suing sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok over an alarming mental illness surge amongst its youth.

“It’s not just the lawyers saying that the two things are connected,” said Robins Kaplan LLP partner Tara Sutton. “Scientists have drawn conclusions and concluded along with the U.S. Surgeon General that social media use has targeted children.”

The lawyers representing the tribal nation argue that social media companies knew that they could cause harm, and still, they intentionally designed them to be addictive to young people.

The Fond du Lac Band is the first tribal nation in Minnesota to sue the social media sites. The Minneapolis based law firm representing them is filing four other lawsuits on behalf of other tribal nations.

These are the only such lawsuits in U.S. brought by tribal governments, saying native kids and teens are equally gripped to these sites, exacerbating the mental health crisis with fewer resources in these areas to combat them.

Sutton says a win in this case would mean a payout from those companies that the tribe would use to bolster mental health services in schools and throughout the community so that they can better combat the crisis as well as educate kids and parents about possible harm.

Only Google, the company that owns YouTube, responded to ABC 6 News’ request for comment, saying, “the allegations and these complaints are simply not true.”