JCCP No. 5431: In re: ChatGPT Product Liability Cases
Last updated: July 1, 2026
In February 2026, a San Francisco judge gathered the OpenAI wrongful death and product liability lawsuits into a single coordinated proceeding: In re: ChatGPT Product Liability Cases, JCCP No. 5431. This page explains what that order did, which cases travel inside it, and why the coordination marks the point where the OpenAI docket became organized mass litigation. It is part of our coverage of OpenAI Lawsuits.
Active. The coordination order was entered on February 3, 2026 in San Francisco County Superior Court. The grouped cases are in pretrial proceedings, and newer filings, including Carrier v. OpenAI (filed June 11, 2026), are expected to be added.
The claims described on this page are allegations drawn from the underlying lawsuits. OpenAI disputes them, and nothing has been proven in court. Coordination is a procedural step; it is not a finding that any defendant did anything wrong. If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) in the U.S.
- Caption: In re: ChatGPT Product Liability Cases
- Docket number: JCCP No. 5431
- Court: San Francisco County Superior Court
- Coordination order entered: February 3, 2026
- Scope at coordination: Roughly a dozen wrongful death and product liability cases, with additional filings expected to join
- Defendants across constituent cases: OpenAI corporate entities; CEO Sam Altman is named personally in several complaints
- Primary source: Order re Petition for Coordination (PDF)
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 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.
What Is 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. The second 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 who alleges that GPT-4o's design reinforced and escalated a delusional spiral that caused severe psychological and financial harm.
Just as important is what sits 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. And Raine v. OpenAI, the earliest and most prominent of the wrongful death cases, was filed in the same San Francisco court in August 2025 and is covered in detail on its own page.
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, and will rule once on the questions that decide whether these cases survive: whether ChatGPT is a product subject to strict liability or a service outside it, whether Section 230 reaches AI-generated output, and whether a user's own act breaks the causal chain. OpenAI's filings in the coordinated cases have reportedly characterized ChatGPT as a software-based service rather than a product, while a federal court in Garcia v. Character Technologies allowed comparable product claims against a chatbot to proceed. The doctrinal 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.
What to Watch
Three things. First, add-on petitions: which of the newer filings, Carrier among them, are formally folded into the proceeding. Second, 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. Third, whether other state attorneys general follow Florida's lead, a development tracked on States Suing AI Companies.
The Coordination Order
The order granting the petition for coordination is a public court record. A copy is hosted by the Tech Justice Law Project, one of the plaintiff-side organizations in the constituent cases: Order re Petition for Coordination, JCCP No. 5431 (PDF). The file is a scan of the signed order.
How This Fits in the Litigation
This proceeding is the procedural backbone of the state-court side of the OpenAI docket. 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.
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. 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.
Request a Case Review
If you or a family member experienced serious harm following sustained ChatGPT use, you can request a case review on Lawsuit Center.
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Related Coverage
OpenAI Lawsuits
The full case tracker: every OpenAI lawsuit, the theories behind them, and current status.
Raine v. OpenAI
The foundational wrongful death case, from the original complaint to the current fight.
Tumbler Ridge Lawsuits
The seven federal suits filed after the Tumbler Ridge school shooting.
Garcia v. Character Technologies
The chatbot case where product liability claims survived dismissal.
Is AI Output a Product or Content?
The doctrinal question that will decide how far these cases go.
