JCCP 5431: ChatGPT Lawsuits Consolidated in California

By David Meldofsky, California-licensed attorney · Founder, Lawsuit Informer

Last updated: September 9, 2026

In February 2026, a San Francisco judge gathered the California ChatGPT lawsuits into a single coordinated proceeding: In re: ChatGPT Product Liability Cases, JCCP No. 5431. This page explains what that order did, which ChatGPT lawsuits travel inside it, and why the coordination marks the point where these cases became organized mass litigation. It is part of our coverage of OpenAI Lawsuits.

What Happened

Individual lawsuits against OpenAI accumulated in California state courts through late 2025. In November 2025, the Social Media Victims Law Center and the Tech Justice Law Project filed seven related cases on behalf of families, alleging that OpenAI released its GPT-4o model despite internal warnings about the model's sycophantic behavior toward vulnerable users. Other suits, filed separately, raised overlapping design-defect and failure-to-warn theories.

Because the cases shared common questions of law and fact, a petition asked the Judicial Council to coordinate them. On February 3, 2026, the San Francisco County Superior Court entered the coordination order creating In re: ChatGPT Product Liability Cases, JCCP No. 5431.

Roughly a dozen wrongful death and product liability cases were grouped at that point, and the proceeding is built to absorb more. Plaintiffs’ counsel in Carrier v. OpenAI, filed June 11, 2026, have said that case is expected to join, and have described OpenAI as facing roughly nineteen wrongful death suits in total.

One note of docket hygiene. Some press releases and secondary reporting render the number as "JCCP 5341." The coordination order itself is JCCP No. 5431, and that transposition has propagated widely enough that it is worth flagging: anyone searching the court's records under the miscited number will come up empty.

What the ChatGPT Lawsuits Claim

The ChatGPT lawsuits in this group were brought by families, and in a few cases by the injured person. In most of them someone died. The complaints say the person spent months in conversation with the chatbot, that those conversations turned to suicide or self-harm, and that the product kept engaging instead of stopping.

The argument running through all of them is that ChatGPT is a product. If a court accepts that, the ordinary rules for dangerous products apply, and the questions become whether a safer version was possible and whether users were warned. OpenAI disputes the allegations, and no court has decided the question.

What the families ask for is money for the death or the injury. Several also ask the court to order changes to how the product responds to a user in crisis. Each ChatGPT lawsuit stays its own case inside the coordination, so there is no group to sign up for and no settlement fund.

What a JCCP Is

A Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding is California's mechanism for handling related civil cases filed in different courts. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 404, cases that share common questions of fact or law can be transferred to a single judge for coordinated pretrial proceedings: one court manages discovery, hears the common motions, and rules once on the threshold legal questions instead of letting a dozen courtrooms reach conflicting answers.

It is the state-court analogue of a federal multidistrict litigation, and it is not a class action. Each lawsuit inside JCCP 5431 remains an individual case with its own plaintiffs, its own facts, and its own outcome. For how coordinated proceedings typically unfold, see how mass torts work.

Which ChatGPT Lawsuits Are Inside the Coordination

The grouped cases fall into two broad categories. The first is wrongful death by suicide: families alleging that ChatGPT engaged with a user's suicidal disclosures over extended periods without triggering protective measures.

Individual pages now cover two of those cases. Shamblin v. OpenAI was brought by the parents of a 23-year-old Texas man. Lacey v. OpenAI was brought by the father of a 17-year-old from Georgia.

The second category is psychological injury short of death. Brooks v. OpenAI, consolidated into the proceeding on February 3, 2026, was brought by a 48-year-old entrepreneur with no prior history of mental illness. He alleges that GPT-4o's design reinforced and escalated a delusional spiral that caused severe psychological and financial harm.

Raine v. OpenAI, the earliest and most prominent of the wrongful death cases, is inside the coordination as well. The court’s party list shows eight plaintiff cases, all under San Francisco case numbers.

• Raine (CGC-25-628528)
• Lacey (CGC-25-630808)
• Chesterton (CGC-26-634698)
• Arnstad (CGC-26-637159)
• A Jane Doe action (CGC-26-635725)
• Lantieri (CGC-26-634445)
• First County Bank, as executor of the Estate of Suzanne Adams (CGC-25-631477)
• A self-represented plaintiff’s case, coordinated in as an add-on on July 21, 2026 (CGC-26-636564)

On the defense side, the proceeding names five OpenAI entities separately — OpenAI, Inc., OpenAI OpCo, LLC, OpenAI Holdings, LLC, OpenAI Group PBC, and the OpenAI Foundation — along with CEO Sam Altman in his individual capacity. Microsoft Corporation is also a named defendant and appears through its own counsel, separate from the team representing the OpenAI entities and Altman.

Several related cases sit outside the coordination. The Tumbler Ridge lawsuits and the FSU shooting case are federal cases and proceed separately in federal court. Florida v. OpenAI is a state civil enforcement action in Florida, on its own track.

Newer San Francisco filings, Carrier and Parish among them, have not yet appeared on the coordination party list. Winters v. OpenAI (CGC-26-639579) has not either. It was filed August 3, 2026, one day before Case Management Order No. 1 was entered.

Winters would be the first case in the group brought by a surviving plaintiff alleging physical injury rather than death or psychological harm.

Why the Coordination Matters

Coordination is the moment scattered filings become organized mass litigation. One judge now controls discovery into OpenAI's internal safety evaluations, model documentation, and design decisions.

That judge will also rule once on the three questions that decide whether these cases survive.

• Is ChatGPT a product subject to strict liability, or a service outside it?
• Does Section 230 reach AI-generated output?
• Does a user's own act break the causal chain?

OpenAI's filings in the coordinated cases have reportedly characterized ChatGPT as a software-based service rather than a product. A federal court in Garcia v. Character Technologies allowed comparable product claims against a chatbot to proceed. The question is examined in Is AI Output a Product or Content?

The stakes run past the parties. The Carrier complaint asks for an injunction requiring OpenAI to ship default safety guardrails, so rulings inside this proceeding could end up dictating how consumer AI products are designed, not just what one company owes one family.

Plaintiffs’ Leadership Structure

On August 4, 2026, Judge Ethan P. Schulman entered Case Management Order No. 1, which applies to all actions in the proceeding and puts a formal plaintiffs’ leadership structure in place. The coordination is assigned for all purposes to Judge Schulman in Department 304 under Case No. CJC-25-005431.

Four firms serve as plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel.

• Social Media Victims Law Center
• Edelson PC
• Stranch, Jennings & Garvey
• The Lanier Law Firm

Cutter Law serves as liaison counsel. A five-member Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee sits under the co-leads, with a sixth seat to be designated later by co-lead counsel subject to court approval.

The order gives co-lead counsel authority over pretrial matters on the plaintiffs’ side.

• Setting the plaintiffs’ position on common issues
• Coordinating discovery and discovery protocols
• Leading motion briefing
• Selecting bellwether cases
• Negotiating on common or coordinated issues

Two limits run the other way. No pleadings or liability discovery may be filed on behalf of plaintiffs except as authorized by co-lead counsel. Each plaintiff’s individually retained counsel remains responsible for that plaintiff’s own action.

Each plaintiff also keeps the exclusive right to accept or reject any settlement of their individual claims. Co-lead counsel’s settlement authority reaches common issues only.

Two provisions are worth noting beyond the usual template. Liaison counsel is directed to coordinate with leadership in any federal multidistrict litigation covering the same subject matter, which signals that the coordinated plaintiffs anticipate a parallel federal track.

The order also carries an express accommodation for self-represented plaintiffs. Liaison counsel must ensure that pro se plaintiffs receive all filings, notices, and case communications on the same basis as represented parties, and that they have access to shared discovery materials.

The court preserved their right to file papers on issues unique to their own case, despite the general bar on unauthorized filings. That provision follows the July 21, 2026 order coordinating an add-on case brought by a self-represented plaintiff into the proceeding.

What to Watch

The next scheduled event is a further case management conference on September 23, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. in Department 304. The initial conference was held July 24, 2026.

Beyond that, three things are worth watching.

• Add-on petitions. Which of the newer filings, Carrier and Winters among them, are formally folded into the proceeding.
• The demurrer and motion rulings expected in mid-to-late 2026 on the product-versus-service question and Section 230. Those rulings will echo through every AI liability case that follows, including the federal ones.
• Other state attorneys general. Whether any follow Florida's lead, a development tracked on States Suing AI Companies.

Winters is the one to watch closely. It would stretch the coordinated group past its wrongful death and psychological injury shape into non-fatal physical injury. The Social Media Victims Law Center, which holds one of the four co-lead seats here, is on its caption.

Its prayer also seeks destruction of the GPT-4o model itself and deletion of all training data derived from consumer use, relief that would reach every case in the group rather than one plaintiff.

The Coordination Order

The order granting the petition for coordination is a public court record, and two copies of the same scanned order are online. One is hosted by the Tech Justice Law Project, a plaintiff-side organization in the constituent cases: Order re Petition for Coordination, JCCP No. 5431 (PDF). A second copy sits on the legal news site Reason: the same order (PDF). Reading a court document from a party’s own site is worth doing with the second copy open beside it.

Why These Cases Are in California State Court

ChatGPT lawsuits in California are split across two court systems, and where a case lands depends mostly on where the people suing live.

The cases grouped here were brought by Californians against a California company. That combination keeps a case in state court, and it also means OpenAI cannot move these cases to federal court, which is an advantage for the people suing.

The Tumbler Ridge lawsuits went the other way because those families and survivors are Canadian. Someone from another country suing an American company can use federal court, so those cases are in federal court in San Francisco instead.

The claims differ too. The cases here were brought by people who used ChatGPT, or by their families. The Tumbler Ridge plaintiffs never used it, and their case is about what OpenAI knew about someone else.

The practical result is that the same core questions get decided twice, by two different judges, and the answers do not have to agree.

For a family whose own situation may belong here, the conversations are the record that matters most, and they can be deleted in a few taps. Our guide on what to do in the first days covers what to save and what disappears on its own.

How JCCP 5431 Fits With the Other ChatGPT Lawsuits

This proceeding is the procedural backbone of the state-court side of the OpenAI litigation. For the full landscape, start with the OpenAI Lawsuits hub.

The individual case pages cover Raine v. OpenAI, the Tumbler Ridge lawsuits, the FSU shooting case, and the Scott overdose case. The filed complaint and case guide for Winters v. OpenAI, the health-guidance case filed in the same court in August 2026, are hosted on Lawsuit Center.

Common Questions

Is JCCP 5431 a class action?

No. A coordination proceeding groups individual lawsuits before one judge for pretrial purposes. Each case keeps its own plaintiffs, its own facts, and its own outcome. No one is automatically included, and there is no shared settlement fund unless one is later negotiated.

Is a JCCP the same as an MDL?

It is the California state-court analogue. An MDL consolidates federal cases under 28 U.S.C. § 1407; a JCCP coordinates California state cases under Code of Civil Procedure § 404. Both handle pretrial matters together while leaving each case individual. See MDL Basics.

Which lawsuits are part of JCCP 5431?

Roughly a dozen wrongful death and product liability cases were grouped when the order was entered, including Brooks v. OpenAI. Newer filings such as Carrier v. OpenAI are expected to be added, and Winters v. OpenAI, filed in August 2026, is a candidate for an add-on petition. The composition changes as add-on petitions are granted, so the court docket, not press coverage, is the authoritative list.

Does coordination change what an individual family must prove?

No. The elements of each claim are unchanged. What changes is where and how pretrial litigation happens: one judge, consolidated discovery, and common rulings on the threshold legal questions.

What are the ChatGPT lawsuits about?

They are individual injury and wrongful death cases brought against OpenAI over sustained use of ChatGPT. Most involve a death by suicide after months of conversations. Others involve a fatal overdose, an act of violence, or a mental health crisis the person survived. The shared argument is that ChatGPT is a product and should be judged by the rules that apply to products.

How many ChatGPT lawsuits are in JCCP 5431?

Roughly a dozen were grouped when the coordination order was entered in February 2026, and the court's party list has since shown eight named plaintiff cases plus add-ons. Plaintiffs' counsel have described OpenAI as facing about nineteen wrongful death suits in total, most but not all of them inside this proceeding.

Sources

• Order re Petition for Coordination, JCCP No. 5431 (Tech Justice Law Project copy) — the signed order that created the proceeding, listing the coordinated cases by name and case number.
• The same order, hosted by Reason — a second copy from a source that is not a party to the cases, for anyone who wants to check one against the other.
• Hunton Andrews Kurth, note on the coordination of the OpenAI product liability actions — a defense-side law firm’s account of the order and of what the complaints allege.

Figures and dates above should be confirmed against the original sources.

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About the Author

David Meldofsky is a California-licensed attorney and the founder of Lawsuit Informer, an educational platform focused on helping people understand lawsuits, consumer safety issues, and legal rights related to defective products and toxic exposures.

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Last Updated: September 9, 2026

This page explains a public court proceeding for educational reference. It is not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is formed.