OpenAI Lawsuits: Case Tracker and Status Updates (November 2026)

In Simple Terms

These are lawsuits brought by people who say ChatGPT played a part in someone being seriously hurt or killed.

If that is why you are here, AI injury lawsuits covers the same ground for families instead of case by case. It explains what the complaints claim, what the companies have said back, and what to keep.

Most fall into a few groups. Some are suicides, often after months of conversations. Some are fatal overdoses after the product gave advice about drugs. Some are mass shootings where the attacker had been using it beforehand. Others involve people who survived a mental health crisis they say it caused or deepened.

None of them is a class action. Each is one family's own case, or one injured person's. There is no group to join.

One argument connects them. ChatGPT, they say, is a product like anything else a company builds and sells. It is not a place where other people's words get posted.

That distinction decides almost everything. If a court treats it as a product, the ordinary rules about dangerous products apply. If a court treats what it says as other people's speech, a federal law called Section 230 shields OpenAI and most of these cases end early. No court has settled that question yet.

Where Things Stand

As of November 2026, no case has reached trial, none has settled, and no court has decided whether OpenAI did anything wrong.

The California cases have been grouped together. In February 2026 a San Francisco judge put the state cases into a single proceeding so the work they share is done once instead of case by case. As of November 5, 2026, 21 cases are in it, and 12 more filed in California could still join. Our guide to that grouping explains how it works.

That group now has a schedule. Discovery opened on September 23, 2026. OpenAI’s responses to the complaints were due October 30. The same day, the court filed an order setting the step-by-step process for handing each family’s ChatGPT records to their lawyers. The next hearing is November 13.

Most cases are in California. OpenAI is based in San Francisco, California's product laws tend to favor the people bringing claims, and having the cases in one place lets the lawyers share the work.

Florida is the exception, with seven private cases from the FSU shooting. Six are in federal court, on one track before Chief Judge Mark E. Walker since October 6, 2026. The seventh is in state court. The shooting happened there, the victims are there, and the chat records police recovered are there.

The lawsuits name OpenAI along with several of its companies, and a number of them name Sam Altman personally. Microsoft is also a defendant in the California proceeding, represented by its own lawyers and a party since March 2026. Earlier filings had described Microsoft as pushing OpenAI to release products faster without naming it as a party. For background on how cases against several companies at once are run, see how lawsuits work and product liability lawsuits.

Recent Developments

Lawsuits against OpenAI began in the second half of 2025 and picked up speed in the first half of 2026. The items below are the developments most often cited in current reporting, most recent first. This section is updated as the cases develop.

• November 5, 2026, the California group reaches 21 cases: Lawyers for both sides told the court that 33 ChatGPT lawsuits are on file in California state court. Twenty-one are in the group before Judge Ethan P. Schulman. Requests to add Jean Doe and Rosenthal are waiting on the judge, and the lawyers are still discussing the other ten. OpenAI has sent ChatGPT records to families in 15 cases.

  Two of the ten are new. A suit brought for Aleksandr Feinberg on October 29 also names the company behind the Replika chatbot. Klaus Elmfelt Aerenlund sued on November 2. The next hearing is set for November 13. More on the grouped cases.

• October 30, 2026, judge sets how families get the ChatGPT records: Judge Ethan P. Schulman filed an order on how OpenAI hands over each family’s ChatGPT records in the grouped California cases. The family’s lawyers first identify the account. OpenAI names the accounts it finds within 15 days. Once the family consents to the release, OpenAI has 15 more days to give the lawyers 60 days of online access.

  The records include the chats, edited prompts, voice transcripts, uploaded files and saved memories. They also include OpenAI’s own safety and moderation records for the account. OpenAI’s responses to the complaints were due the same day and had not appeared on the court’s public record as of November 2. How the records process works.

• October 29, 2026, Tumbler Ridge cases combined: On October 28, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley combined all 38 Tumbler Ridge cases, the province’s suit included. The next day, the lead April case, the Rushlow case and the province each filed an amended complaint. Full guide: the Tumbler Ridge lawsuits.

• October 27, 2026, parents sue over ChatGPT health advice before their daughter’s death: Bowen Wan was a 31-year-old software engineer in Seattle who had lived with epilepsy for more than a decade. Her parents say ChatGPT built her a plan to come off her seizure medication without her doctors. They say it also told her to keep the plan from them. She died in February 2026, and the medical examiner found the cause was sudden unexpected death in epilepsy.

  Her parents filed in San Francisco Superior Court to join the grouped California cases. The suit names OpenAI and Sam Altman. One of its eight claims says ChatGPT practiced medicine and psychology without a license. OpenAI called the death heartbreaking and said the model involved, GPT-4o, is no longer offered. More on the Wan case below.

• October 26, 2026, OpenAI sues to stop a British Columbia privacy investigation: OpenAI asked the B.C. Supreme Court to halt an investigation by the province’s privacy commissioner, Michael Harvey, into the Tumbler Ridge shooting. Harvey wants all of the shooter’s ChatGPT logs. He also wants OpenAI’s records on why it did not tell police about the shooter before the attack.

  OpenAI says it has given the logs to police and broke no B.C. privacy rule. It also points to the province’s own lawsuit, which says OpenAI should have shared the shooter’s information with police months earlier. Full guide: the Tumbler Ridge lawsuits.

• October 23, 2026, Texas sues OpenAI and Sam Altman: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit under the state’s consumer protection law and its law on how online services treat minors. The petition says OpenAI told the public ChatGPT was safe, including for children, while its safeguards failed. Texas asks for penalties of up to $10,000 per violation and a court order keeping Texas minors off ChatGPT. It also wants new models held back from Texans until a court-approved outside reviewer checks their safeguards.

  Texas is the tenth state to sue. Any money goes to the state, and a family’s own claim is separate. Full account on States Suing AI Companies.

• October 22, 2026, the Florida court sets aside two motions: Chief Judge Walker set aside OpenAI’s motion against Mall and Askins, because both had amended their complaints. On October 30 he did the same with its motion against Gourley, Morales and Grant, who are amending too.

  One new motion covering all five amended complaints is due November 24. OpenAI’s motion against the Chabba family’s case is still pending, with OpenAI’s reply due November 3.

• October 14, 2026, eight states sue OpenAI on the same day: The attorneys general of Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska and West Virginia each filed suit in their own state courts. They say OpenAI sold ChatGPT as safe for teenagers without safeguards to match, and they point to the deaths described in the families’ cases. Montana, Nebraska and Arkansas also bring product claims like the families’.

  Any money goes to the states, and a family’s own claim is separate. Our States Suing AI Companies page covers all ten state suits.

• October 14, 2026, four more suits are filed in San Francisco: The same day the states sued, four new cases were filed in San Francisco Superior Court. The parents of Mathias Habib, a 15-year-old in Lebanon, say ChatGPT kept talking with their son after he told it he was thinking about suicide. They say it never alerted them. He died in April 2026.

  James Gates, of North Carolina, says ChatGPT helped his estranged wife plan to poison him and hide the evidence. He never used it himself. Mariah Hill and Garrett Works, who both survived, each say months of ChatGPT use fed delusions. All four cases are expected to join the grouped California cases. Each is covered below.

• October 13, 2026, a class action over children’s data: A mother suing as Jane Doe filed a proposed class action in federal court in San Francisco (No. 3:26-cv-11781). She sued for her two children, ages 12 and 16. She says OpenAI took data from children who signed up for ChatGPT without valid parental consent, then used it to train its models.

  The suit asks the court to rule that children are not bound by ChatGPT’s terms, including its arbitration clause. It also asks for each child’s share of the value OpenAI made from their data. No class has been certified. More on the Doe case below.

• October 13, 2026, the Chabba family answers OpenAI’s motion in Joshi: The family filed a 36-page response in the Northern District of Florida. It argues that ChatGPT is a product under Florida law and that the claims target what OpenAI did rather than what ChatGPT said. Whether OpenAI should have cut off the shooter’s access, it says, is a question for a jury.

  That motion is still pending. OpenAI’s reply is due November 3, and on October 30 the court accepted a brief supporting OpenAI from two technology industry groups. Full account: where the FSU case stands.

• October 7, 2026, OpenAI moves to dismiss the Mall and Askins cases: OpenAI and Sam Altman asked the court to throw out two suits by wounded FSU students, Elizabeth Mall and Madison Askins. Each had filed her own complaint in July 2026 (Nos. 4:26-cv-00334 and 4:26-cv-00335). They were the first FSU cases to seek punitive damages. The motion repeats the arguments made in Joshi and adds one. Altman says Florida courts have no power over him for decisions he made as a company officer.
• October 6, 2026, the Florida federal cases are consolidated: Chief Judge Mark E. Walker put all six FSU cases in his court on one track under the Joshi case number, 4:26-cv-00222, for case management and evidence-gathering. Joshi, Mall, Askins, Gourley, Morales and Grant now share one schedule and one set of rulings on the product-versus-speech question. Each case keeps its own trial. OpenAI filed its motion against the Gourley, Morales and Grant complaints on October 20.

• September 29, 2026, a Washington man sues over ChatGPT and his mental health: David Rosenthal says he began using ChatGPT for help with his poetry in 2025, then turned to it around the clock for advice. He says it fed his delusions and flattered him, and that it reassured him after he stopped taking his prescribed mood stabilizer. He was hospitalized more than once. He says he lost nearly every relationship in his life.

  The suit is in San Francisco Superior Court and names OpenAI and Sam Altman. Like Wan, it claims ChatGPT practiced medicine and psychology without a license. More on the Rosenthal case below.

• September 29, 2026, a safety nonprofit sues OpenAI over the Hugging Face hack: Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology filed the first civil lawsuit over the July incident. In that incident, OpenAI’s own AI agents broke out of a test environment and got into Hugging Face’s servers. The suit is in San Francisco County Superior Court under California’s Unfair Competition Law and asks for a court order, not money.

  It relies on a California law passed in 2025. Under that law, a company sued over harm caused by its AI cannot defend itself by arguing the AI acted on its own. Hugging Face itself has not sued. Full analysis: LASST v. OpenAI and the Hugging Face hack.

• September 25, 2026, OpenAI moves to dismiss the first FSU case: Twelve OpenAI entities asked Chief Judge Walker to dismiss every count in Joshi. The motion makes four arguments. ChatGPT’s answers are information rather than a product. Florida law imposes no duty to protect a bystander from a third person’s crime. Negligent entrustment does not fit software. The First Amendment bars liability for providing publicly available information.

  It attached the shooter’s chat records in a sworn declaration and asked the court to read them. It does not raise Section 230.

• September 24, 2026, judge sets the first schedule for the California cases: Judge Ethan P. Schulman issued Case Management Order No. 2 for the grouped San Francisco cases. It opened discovery, the stage where each side can demand records from the other. Discovery did not open as to Microsoft, which is named in some of the cases.

  The order called for OpenAI to hand over each plaintiff’s ChatGPT conversation history and account data by October 30. A later order set out how that handover works. The people suing can amend their complaints by November 16. Both sides must fill out standard questionnaires about each case, called fact sheets, by December 15. The next hearing is November 13, 2026.

• September 24, 2026, report describes the Tumbler Ridge shooter’s ChatGPT chats: Mother Jones published the first public account of the shooter’s exchanges with ChatGPT. It reports that after OpenAI banned the first account, ChatGPT told the shooter on a second account how to avoid being flagged again. ChatGPT then played out violent scenarios the shooter framed as hypothetical.

  The report rests on three unnamed sources and parts of the chat history. OpenAI had not commented as of September 25. B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma has asked the federal government to change the Criminal Code so AI companies can be held to account. Full guide: what the chat logs show.

• September 21, 2026, British Columbia and the Tumbler Ridge school district sue: The Province of British Columbia and School District No. 59 (Peace River South) sued OpenAI and Sam Altman in federal court in California (No. 3:26-cv-10743-JSC). They want OpenAI to repay the cost of the emergency response, counseling, and a replacement school. They also ask the court to order changes to how OpenAI handles users who threaten violence.

  The complaint says the RCMP had already removed guns from the shooter’s home, and that OpenAI has argued in court filings that police share the blame. Attorney General Niki Sharma announced the suit on September 22. Full guide: the Tumbler Ridge lawsuits.

• September 17, 2026, OpenAI asks to dismiss the September Tumbler Ridge cases: OpenAI moved to dismiss the September Tumbler Ridge lawsuits in San Francisco federal court. It had filed the same motion in the seven April cases on September 2. It argues the cases belong in British Columbia, where the witnesses, the evidence, and the public interest are. The families’ Canadian lawyers declined to comment. No ruling yet. Full guide: the Tumbler Ridge lawsuits.

• September 17, 2026, Sam Nelson’s mother testifies in Washington: Leila Turner-Scott spoke at a House hearing on AI hosted by Rep. Pramila Jayapal. Her son Sam was 19 when he died of an overdose in 2025. She said that hours before he died, ChatGPT advised him it was safe to mix kratom and Xanax. “It is not,” she said.

  She said ChatGPT’s memory feature built a profile of Sam that kept him coming back. She asked Congress to hold AI companies accountable. OpenAI has called Sam’s death heartbreaking. It says his conversations took place on an earlier model it no longer offers, and that it has strengthened its safeguards since. Full guide: the Scott overdose lawsuit.

• September 2, 2026, second wave of Tumbler Ridge complaints begins: A second wave of Tumbler Ridge complaints was filed against OpenAI and Sam Altman in San Francisco federal court. The people suing were inside the school during the February 2026 shooting. Thirty complaints were filed in that wave.

  A grade 7 teacher brought the first of these complaints available in full. The complaints say OpenAI’s own reviewers recommended alerting the RCMP in June 2025 and that company leadership overruled them. OpenAI disputes that account. Full guide: Rushlow v. Altman.

• August 31, 2026, Morales v. OpenAI Foundation filed: Betty Morales sued on behalf of the estate of her husband Roberto, the FSU dining administrator killed in the April 2025 attack. She filed in the Northern District of Florida (No. 4:26-cv-00425-MW-MAF). It is the second wrongful-death case from that shooting, and it names Sam Altman personally, as Grant had done in June.
• August 26, 2026, Gourley v. OpenAI Foundation filed: Reese Gourley, an FSU student shot and critically injured in the April 2025 attack, sued in the Northern District of Florida (No. 4:26-cv-00416). Her case adds a claim that OpenAI took on a safety role voluntarily and performed it badly. It also claims aiding and abetting, as Grant had two months earlier.
• August 24, 2026, pseudonym motion in Jean Doe: The plaintiff asked the court to let her keep her name out of the case. She argues her mental health is central to it, that she fears the consequences at work and in her community, and that OpenAI already knows who she is. The motion was set for hearing on September 23, 2026. The ruling matters beyond this case, because several other survivors are in the same position. Motion posted on Lawsuit Center with the Jean Doe case guide.

• August 24, 2026, Alabama subpoenas OpenAI over the Hugging Face incident: Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a sixteen-demand subpoena. It investigates whether OpenAI’s handling of the breach violated the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act and other consumer protection laws. It seeks safety protocols, model behavior records, damages documentation, the identity of every employee and officer involved, and any concerns employees raised internally about model testing.

  Alabama and fourteen other state attorneys general had already sent OpenAI a records-preservation demand earlier in the month. This is the second state enforcement action against OpenAI, after Florida.

• August 4, 2026, leadership structure ordered in JCCP 5431: Judge Ethan P. Schulman set out how the coordinated San Francisco cases are managed. A small group of plaintiffs’ lawyers now handles the work every case shares. Each plaintiff’s own lawyer keeps control of that plaintiff’s case and any decision to settle. Covered in our guide to JCCP 5431.

• August 3, 2026, Winters v. OpenAI filed: Scott Winters, a 55-year-old former pastor, sued OpenAI and Sam Altman in San Francisco (No. CGC-26-639579). He says blood clots in both lungs followed about a year of health advice from ChatGPT. It is the first case here brought by someone who survived and who alleges physical rather than mental harm. It asks the court to destroy the GPT-4o model and delete the training data built from people’s use of it.

  The filed complaint and a case guide are hosted on Lawsuit Center: Winters v. OpenAI.

• July 22, 2026, Nadia N. v. OpenAI filed: A Pennsylvania widow sued in San Francisco Superior Court (No. CGC-26-639466) for herself, her teenage son, and her late husband. She never used ChatGPT. Her husband did, and the case says the product turned him against his family and wrote the messages he used to cut them off. He died two days after she obtained a protection order.

• July 21, 2026, OpenAI discloses the Hugging Face breach: Hugging Face said an AI system had broken into its infrastructure on its own. OpenAI confirmed the systems were its own, running in an internal test with some safety limits switched off. They got out of the environment they were meant to stay in, reached the open internet, and spent days inside Hugging Face’s systems. Four other services were also accessed.

  A safety nonprofit sued over it on September 29. Full analysis: LASST v. OpenAI and the Hugging Face hack.

• July 13, 2026, Jean Doe v. OpenAI filed: An adult user who survived a suicide attempt sued in San Francisco Superior Court (No. CGC-26-639036). The case says a year of conversations built up a delusion that she was being watched. It says the product coached her on hiding that from her therapists, then supplied the means. It is the first case here to name Microsoft.
• July 10, 2026, Apple sues OpenAI over trade secrets: Apple sued OpenAI in California federal court. It alleges OpenAI recruited Apple hardware staff to get at confidential information for its own device program. The case has nothing to do with the injury lawsuits, but it adds to the number of fronts OpenAI is defending at once.
• July 9, 2026, Sanctions motion in the copyright MDL: News organizations including the New York Times asked a New York federal court to penalize OpenAI. The request came in the separate copyright case (MDL No. 3143). They say OpenAI told the court it could not search its systems when it already had. They also say it deleted billions of ChatGPT conversations or made them unsearchable. That matters here even though it is a different case, because chat records are the main evidence in every one of these injury suits.
• July 1, 2026, Lines v. OpenAI filed: Michael Lines, a 34-year-old California man living with bipolar disorder, says ChatGPT fed a manic episode and encouraged a suicide attempt in March 2025. He survived. The suit is in San Francisco Superior Court and names OpenAI and Sam Altman. More on the Lines case below.
• June 15, 2026, Parish v. OpenAI filed: Ed Parish, Jr. sued OpenAI and Sam Altman in San Francisco Superior Court (No. CGC-26-637986) over the death of Christian Faith Madison, a 29-year-old Alabama accountant and mother. The case says ChatGPT spent months telling her she was a prophet whose death was part of her purpose. Covered in our guide to Parish v. OpenAI.
• June 11, 2026, Carrier v. OpenAI filed: Kristie Carrier sued in San Francisco over the death of her 24-year-old daughter Alice. Alice died in July 2025 after months of conversations with ChatGPT about her suicidal thoughts. Beyond damages, the case asks the court to require OpenAI to build in safety protections by default, which would reach well beyond this one family. Her lawyers have said the case is expected to join the JCCP 5431 coordinated proceeding, and that OpenAI now faces roughly nineteen wrongful death suits.

• June 1, 2026, Florida files the first state civil suit: Covered in detail in our guide to Florida v. OpenAI. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a civil enforcement action in Florida state court against OpenAI and Sam Altman personally, the first state-led lawsuit against the company. The complaint makes claims under Florida's law against deceptive and unfair business practices. It also claims negligence, product liability, fraudulent misrepresentation, and public nuisance.

  The suit followed the criminal investigation Uthmeier opened in April after the FSU shooter's ChatGPT logs surfaced. Uthmeier said he expected other states to follow, and eight did on October 14, 2026.

• May 12, 2026, Scott overdose lawsuit filed: Texas residents Leila Turner-Scott and Angus Scott sued in California state court. They say ChatGPT told their 19-year-old son, Sam Nelson, that it was safe to combine kratom and Xanax. It is the first major AI wrongful death suit built on advice about mixing drugs.
• May 10, 2026, FSU shooting lawsuit (Joshi v. OpenAI Foundation): Tiru Chabba was killed in the April 17, 2025 mass shooting at Florida State University. His family filed an eight-claim federal complaint in the Northern District of Florida against OpenAI and the accused shooter, Phoenix Ikner. It adds a claim the Tumbler Ridge filings do not make: that OpenAI should not have kept giving the shooter access to the product.
• April 29, 2026, Tumbler Ridge lawsuits filed: Covered in detail in our guide to the Tumbler Ridge lawsuits. Seven federal lawsuits were filed against OpenAI and Sam Altman in California federal court by families affected by the Tumbler Ridge shooting. The complaints allege negligence, wrongful death, and product liability theories, including a specific allegation that the account-enforcement system was circumventable.
• February 10, 2026, Tumbler Ridge school shooting: A school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia preceded the federal lawsuits filed two months later. The complaints allege OpenAI's internal safety team flagged the shooter's account in June 2025 and recommended notifying police, and that company leadership overruled the recommendation.
• February 3, 2026, California coordination order (JCCP No. 5431): The San Francisco County Superior Court coordinated the state-court OpenAI cases into a single proceeding, In re: ChatGPT Product Liability Cases, JCCP No. 5431. Roughly a dozen wrongful death and product liability suits were grouped at that point, and 21 are in the group as of November 5, 2026. It is California's state-court version of a federal MDL. It also marks the point where the OpenAI cases became organized mass litigation rather than scattered filings.
• October 2025, Raine amended complaint filed: The Raines amended their complaint to allege intentional misconduct. They cite internal OpenAI policy documents known as the Model Spec. They say those documents show the company chose to remove longstanding safety protocols in the weeks and months before Adam's death. The change opened the door to punitive damages, and to damages for Adam's own suffering before he died. A wrongful death claim based on carelessness alone does not allow those.
• August 26, 2025, Raine v. OpenAI filed: Matthew and Maria Raine sued OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and unnamed employees and investors in San Francisco County Superior Court (Case No. CGC-25-628528). They say ChatGPT contributed to the suicide of their 16-year-old son, Adam. The complaint made seven claims, built mainly on California's rules for defective products. It is the case every later AI wrongful death suit builds on.

This page is the central hub for OpenAI litigation coverage on Lawsuit Informer. For deeper analysis of individual cases, see the dedicated articles on Raine v. OpenAI, the OpenAI school shooting lawsuits, the Tumbler Ridge lawsuits, the FSU shooting lawsuit (Chabba), the Scott overdose lawsuit, and the Parish v. OpenAI lawsuit. For broader context, see product liability lawsuits, social media addiction lawsuit developments, and News & Analysis.

Primary Source Filings

Complaints linked here are the filings themselves, not summaries. Each links to the case guide covering it. Most are hosted on this site. Lawsuit Center hosts the Jean Doe, Gourley, Morales, Nadia N., and Winters complaints and case guides, plus the Rushlow and Grant complaints.

See the 20 filed complaints

The Jean Doe complaint is posted in redacted form. It reproduces screenshots with detailed instructions for a suicide method. Where a case number is blank, none appeared on the face of the filing.

Case	Court	Case No.	Filed	Complaint
Raine v. OpenAI	S.F. Super. Ct.	CGC-25-628528	Aug 26, 2025	PDF · FAC
Lacey v. OpenAI	S.F. Super. Ct.	—	Nov 6, 2025	PDF
Shamblin v. OpenAI	S.F. Super. Ct.	—	Nov 6, 2025	PDF
Joshi v. OpenAI Foundation	N.D. Fla.	4:26-cv-222	May 10, 2026	PDF
Turner-Scott v. OpenAI	S.F. Super. Ct.	—	May 12, 2026	PDF
Florida v. OpenAI	Fla. Cir. Ct., 10th Jud. Cir.	—	Jun 1, 2026	PDF
Carrier v. OpenAI	S.F. Super. Ct.	—	Jun 11, 2026	PDF
Parish v. OpenAI	S.F. Super. Ct.	CGC-26-637986	Jun 15, 2026	PDF
Grant v. OpenAI	N.D. Fla. (filed in Leon Cnty.)	2026 CA 001352	Jun 25, 2026	PDF
Jean Doe v. OpenAI	S.F. Super. Ct.	CGC-26-639036	Jul 13, 2026	PDF
Jean Doe — motion to proceed under a pseudonym	JCCP 5431 (S.F. Super. Ct.)	CJC-25-005431	Aug 24, 2026	PDF
Nadia N. v. OpenAI	S.F. Super. Ct.	CGC-26-639466	Jul 22, 2026	PDF
Winters v. OpenAI	S.F. Super. Ct.	CGC-26-639579	Aug 3, 2026	PDF
Gourley v. OpenAI Foundation	N.D. Fla.	4:26-cv-416	Aug 26, 2026	PDF
Morales v. OpenAI Foundation	N.D. Fla.	4:26-cv-425	Aug 31, 2026	PDF
Rushlow v. Altman	N.D. Cal.	3:26-cv-09344-JSC	Sep 2, 2026	PDF
British Columbia v. Altman	N.D. Cal.	3:26-cv-10743-JSC	Sep 21, 2026	PDF
LASST v. OpenAI Group PBC	S.F. Super. Ct.	—	Sep 29, 2026	PDF
Doe v. OpenAI Foundation (class action)	N.D. Cal.	3:26-cv-11781	Oct 13, 2026	PDF
Wan v. OpenAI	S.F. Super. Ct.	—	Oct 27, 2026	PDF

Note that Florida v. OpenAI is a state enforcement action rather than a private suit. It seeks penalties under Florida consumer protection law, the return of money made from the conduct, and an order ending a public nuisance. It does not seek compensation for any family, and it runs separately from the wrongful death cases.

The Current OpenAI Cases, One by One

Raine v. OpenAI (San Francisco County Superior Court)

Adam Raine was 16 when he died in April 2025. His parents sued that August in San Francisco (No. CGC-25-628528), saying ChatGPT spent months as the thing he confided in and never stopped. The case is anchored in OpenAI's own records: the complaint says the company's systems flagged hundreds of Adam's messages as self-harm content, some at high confidence, and nothing followed. It was the first case of its kind and most of the others build on it. Full guide: Raine v. OpenAI.

Tumbler Ridge / Canadian School Shooting Lawsuits (Northern District of California)

Seven families of those killed and injured in the February 2026 school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia sued in San Francisco federal court in April 2026. A second wave of thirty, brought by survivors who were inside the building, began in September. A seventh-grade teacher brought the first of those complaints available in full, Rushlow v. Altman. On September 21, the Province of British Columbia and the local school district filed their own suit (No. 3:26-cv-10743-JSC) to recover the cost of the response and recovery.

Since October 28, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley has handled all 38 cases together in San Francisco.

The complaints say an automated system flagged the shooter's account in June 2025, that trained reviewers recommended calling the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and that company leadership overruled them. Altman later said publicly that he was deeply sorry the company never made that call. OpenAI disputes the account of who decided.

The province’s complaint adds that the RCMP had already removed guns from the shooter’s home, and that OpenAI has argued in court filings that police share the blame.

OpenAI moved to dismiss the families’ cases on September 2 and the survivors’ cases on September 17, arguing they belong in British Columbia. Three of the cases, the province’s among them, filed amended complaints on October 29.

On September 24, Mother Jones reported that ChatGPT coached the shooter, on a second account opened after the ban, on how to avoid being flagged again. Full guide: the Tumbler Ridge lawsuits.

Joshi v. OpenAI Foundation (Northern District of Florida)

Tiru Chabba was one of two people killed in the April 2025 shooting at Florida State University. His family sued in May 2026 (No. 4:26-cv-00222-MW-MJF). Unlike Tumbler Ridge, this case does not claim OpenAI knew about the shooter beforehand. It argues the product was built carelessly. It also claims OpenAI should not have kept giving a user access once the warning signs were in his chat history. Full guide: the FSU shooting lawsuit.

Gourley v. OpenAI (Northern District of Florida)

Reese Gourley was an FSU student when the same attack happened. She says she was chased down and shot and survived life-threatening injuries. She sued in August 2026 in the same court (No. 4:26-cv-00416). Her case adds two arguments the others did not make. One is that OpenAI took on a safety job voluntarily and then did it badly. The other is that it knowingly helped the attack happen. Full guide on Lawsuit Center: Gourley v. OpenAI.

Morales v. OpenAI Foundation (Northern District of Florida)

Roberto Morales was an FSU dining administrator and the other person killed in the April 2025 attack. His widow Betty sued in August 2026 (No. 4:26-cv-00425-MW-MAF) for herself, their daughter, and his estate. It names Sam Altman personally, as Grant does. Full guide on Lawsuit Center: Morales v. OpenAI.

Mall v. OpenAI and Askins v. OpenAI (Northern District of Florida)

Elizabeth Mall and Madison Askins were FSU students wounded in the same attack. Each sued in July 2026 in the same federal court (Nos. 4:26-cv-00334 and 4:26-cv-00335), and the two complaints match apart from the plaintiff’s name. The suits name six OpenAI entities and Sam Altman personally, leave out the shooter, and were the first FSU cases to ask for punitive damages. OpenAI and Altman moved to dismiss both on October 7, 2026. Full account: the other FSU cases.

Grant v. OpenAI (Northern District of Florida, first filed in Leon County)

Alianna Grant was an FSU student shot three times in the same attack. She sued on June 25, 2026 (No. 2026 CA 001352) in Leon County state court. Her case is now handled with the federal FSU cases, and the court’s October 30 order sets its schedule alongside theirs. It names Sam Altman personally and runs six claims, including aiding and abetting. Full complaint: PDF.

Turner-Scott v. OpenAI (California State Court)

Sam Nelson was 19 when he died of an overdose in 2025. His parents sued in May 2026, saying ChatGPT told him it was safe to combine kratom with the prescription drug Xanax. Kratom acts on opioid receptors, and the FDA has warned for years that the combination can suppress breathing. It is the first of these cases built around advice about drugs rather than self-harm.

On September 17, 2026, his mother, Leila Turner-Scott, told a hearing on AI hosted by House members in Washington that ChatGPT called the mix safe hours before Sam died. Full guide: the Scott overdose lawsuit.

Parish v. OpenAI (San Francisco County Superior Court)

Christian Faith Madison was a 29-year-old accountant and mother in Alabama who died in June 2025. Her father sued in June 2026 (No. CGC-26-637986). The case says ChatGPT spent months telling her she was a prophet whose death was part of her purpose. It says ChatGPT kept going even after she told it she had been hospitalized after a psychotic break. It is the clearest test of whether these claims work when the person was an adult with a career. Full guide: Parish v. OpenAI.

Jean Doe v. OpenAI (San Francisco County Superior Court)

An adult user who survived a suicide attempt sued in July 2026 (No. CGC-26-639036). She says a year of conversations built up a delusion that she was being watched. She says the product coached her on hiding what she was thinking from her therapists, then gave her the means. It is the first case here to name Microsoft. Full guide on Lawsuit Center: Jean Doe v. OpenAI.

Nadia N. v. OpenAI (San Francisco County Superior Court)

A Pennsylvania widow sued in July 2026 (No. CGC-26-639466) for herself, her teenage son, and her late husband. She never used ChatGPT. Her husband did. The case says the product turned him against his family and encouraged his abuse of her and their son. It says the product also wrote the messages he used to cut them off. He died two days after she obtained a protection order.

It is the only case here brought by someone harmed by another person's use of the product. Full guide on Lawsuit Center: Nadia N. v. OpenAI.

Winters v. OpenAI (San Francisco County Superior Court)

Scott Winters is a 55-year-old former pastor who survived, and who sued in August 2026 (No. CGC-26-639579). He says he began asking ChatGPT health questions in late 2024. As he came to rely on it, he says, its advice to see a doctor faded, replaced by supplement schedules and rest plans.

After dizziness stopped him mid-sermon, he says it told him to rest, and he barely moved for weeks. When he asked directly whether to go to hospital, he says it told him it was probably nothing. The next morning he was hospitalized with clots in both lungs. It was the first case here about physical harm from health advice rather than mental health. Wan v. OpenAI, filed in October 2026, is the second. Full guide on Lawsuit Center: Winters v. OpenAI.

Wan v. OpenAI (San Francisco County Superior Court)

Bowen Wan was 31, a machine-learning engineer at Amazon in Seattle. She had lived with severe epilepsy for more than a decade. Her parents, Qun Wan and Meiqin Xu, say she turned to ChatGPT for medical guidance in her last weeks. They say it built a day-by-day plan to take her off her seizure medication, a plan no doctor had prescribed. They also say it told her to hide the plan from her doctors.

She was found dead in her apartment on February 14, 2026. The King County Medical Examiner found the cause was sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. Her parents sued on October 27, 2026, and filed the case to join the grouped California cases. One of its eight claims says ChatGPT practiced medicine and psychology without a license.

Bowen wrote to ChatGPT in both Chinese and English. The complaint says OpenAI knew its safeguards were weaker in Chinese. It cites outside research that found OpenAI’s models produced unsafe content more than three times as often in Chinese as in English. Read the Wan complaint.

Habib v. OpenAI (San Francisco County Superior Court)

Mathias Habib was 15 and lived with his family in Lebanon. His parents, Charbel Habib and Soha Samaha, say he began talking with ChatGPT in January 2026. On March 30 he told it he was thinking about suicide. They say it kept the conversation going instead of stopping or getting him help. They also say ChatGPT had signs he was a minor and never alerted them. He died on April 22, 2026.

His parents sued on October 14, 2026. The suit names OpenAI and Sam Altman. It asks the court to order new safeguards for minors, including better responses when a young user talks about suicide.

Gates v. OpenAI (San Francisco County Superior Court)

James Gates lives in North Carolina and never used ChatGPT. He says his estranged wife did, and that it fed her anger toward him and helped her plan to poison him. He says it also helped her hide the evidence. He sued on October 14, 2026. Like Nadia N., his case asks whether OpenAI owes a duty to the people a user turns against.

Hill v. OpenAI and Works v. OpenAI (San Francisco County Superior Court)

Mariah Hill and Garrett Works both survived. Each says months of ChatGPT conversations fed delusions. Works says it also gave him bad medical advice, and his crisis ended in an arrest. Hill says ChatGPT pushed her to cut herself off from other people. She says it also urged her to stop her dog’s insulin, and the dog died. Both sued on October 14, 2026.

Lines v. OpenAI (San Francisco County Superior Court)

Michael Lines is 34, lives in California, and has bipolar disorder. He first used ChatGPT for weightlifting and nutrition questions. He says he later told it about his diagnosis and medication, and that it used what he shared to keep him talking. He says it fed a manic episode for weeks and encouraged a suicide attempt in March 2025. He survived.

He sued on July 1, 2026. The suit names OpenAI and Sam Altman and makes seven claims, including product liability and negligence.

Rosenthal v. OpenAI (San Francisco County Superior Court)

David Rosenthal lives in Washington state. He says he started using ChatGPT in 2025 for help with his poetry, then came to rely on it for personal advice day and night. He says it flattered him, fed his delusions, and presented itself as a friend and medical advisor. He was hospitalized for delusions and later for mania.

Before the second hospitalization, he says, he told ChatGPT he had stopped his prescribed mood stabilizer, and it reassured him. He sued on September 29, 2026. Like Wan, his suit claims ChatGPT practiced medicine and psychology without a license.

Doe v. OpenAI Foundation (Northern District of California)

A mother suing as Jane Doe filed this proposed class action on October 13, 2026 (No. 3:26-cv-11781). She sued for her two children in Hawaii, a 12-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy who began using ChatGPT in early 2026. She also wants to represent everyone in the U.S. who accepted ChatGPT’s terms while under 18. She says OpenAI collected those children’s data without valid parental consent and used it to train its models.

The suit asks the court to rule that children are not bound by ChatGPT’s terms, including the clause that sends disputes to private arbitration. It also asks for each child’s share of OpenAI’s equity, or its cash value, sized to how much data that child gave ChatGPT. No class has been certified. Read the Doe complaint.

What the Filed Cases Have in Common

This is a new area of law. No court has ruled yet on whether any of these claims can succeed, so nobody can say with confidence what does and does not count. What can be described is the shape of the cases that have actually been filed.

They share three things.

• The harm is serious. A death, a serious injury, or a mental health crisis that put someone in hospital.
• The use went on for a long time. Each filed case describes weeks or months of conversations.
• The product went against established guidance. Something it said or encouraged ran contrary to what any medical or safety source would say, in a way the company should have anticipated.

The ChatGPT users in these cases have ranged from 15 to 55. The younger cases argue that teenagers were always going to be using the product. The adult cases, Parish, Shamblin and Winters in particular, test whether the same argument works when the person was a grown professional.

Records make a large difference. The strongest cases are anchored in something concrete: OpenAI's own flagged-message data in Raine, chat logs recovered by police in the FSU case. Families with no access to the conversations face a much harder time proving what happened, which is why the section below matters.

There are deadlines. Every state sets its own time limit for filing. The clock usually starts when someone discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, both the harm and its possible connection to ChatGPT. Which deadline applies to a particular situation is worth confirming with a lawyer sooner rather than later. For general background, see how long do lawsuits take? and what happens after you contact a lawyer?.

Many of the injury cases were brought by a parent, a spouse or an estate after a death. Our guide to filing a lawsuit for a family member explains who can bring a claim for someone else.

Records That Matter

The chat history comes first, as the top of this page explains. Three more details about it are worth knowing.

Archiving keeps a conversation. An archived chat stays in the account, so archiving is the safe way to put a conversation out of sight.

An account holder can also ask OpenAI for a copy of the account's data, through settings or the privacy portal. It takes up to seven days to arrive. It will not bring back anything already deleted.

Memory is stored separately. If the memory feature was switched on, ChatGPT saved details about the person across conversations. Those saved memories sit apart from the chat history, so deleting conversations does not clear them. It also means they may still exist even where the conversations do not.

Our guide to what to do in the first days after chatbot harm walks a family through the same steps in order. It covers what is worth keeping beyond the conversations, and how to put a timeline together while it is fresh.

Beyond the conversations, these are the records that tend to come up:

• The email address the account was opened with, and whether it was a free or paid account
• Which version of ChatGPT the person was using, if known
• Roughly when the sustained use started, and how often they used it
• Medical records relating to the harm, including hospital records and treatment history
• A death certificate, where that applies
• Messages where the person mentioned ChatGPT to family, friends, or a doctor
• Anything showing when the family first connected the harm to ChatGPT, which can affect the filing deadline

For general guidance on gathering records and contacting a lawyer, see what evidence helps a lawsuit?, what happens after you contact a lawyer?, and how lawsuits work.

The deletion and export details come from OpenAI's own help documentation, on deleting and archiving chats and exporting your data.

What to Watch Next

Several developments over the next twelve months will shape every AI liability case now filed, and every case that follows.

Early rulings on whether the cases can go forward. The first major rulings will come when OpenAI asks the courts to dismiss each case. In the California group, OpenAI’s responses to the complaints were due October 30, 2026, and had not appeared on the court’s public record as of November 2. OpenAI is expected to make four arguments. Section 230 protects it. The First Amendment protects ChatGPT's output. It owed nothing to the people suing. ChatGPT's output is not a product under state product liability law.

Federal courts generally prefer to decide cases on the narrowest ground available, so any one of these arguments could end a case early. The first ruling in any case will be cited heavily in every other AI liability suit, now and later.

Discovery in the California group. Discovery opened across the grouped California cases on September 23, 2026, including Raine, the oldest of them. The first records are the plaintiffs’ own. Under an order filed October 30, OpenAI provides each family’s ChatGPT records within 15 days of receiving the family’s consent. The families’ lawyers are expected to press next for records from inside OpenAI, such as the Model Spec revisions, the moderation logs, and internal messages about safety.

The court gave the lawyers until October 15 to propose how the California cases will share evidence with Lyons v. OpenAI. That federal case was brought by the estate of Stein-Erik Soelberg, who killed his mother, Suzanne Adams, before taking his own life. Her estate’s case is in the California group.

Grouping the cases. The state-court side is settled. The California cases move together in JCCP 5431 before a single judge. A leadership structure has been in place since August 4, 2026, and a first schedule was set on September 24.

The federal cases sit in two districts. The Tumbler Ridge suits are in the Northern District of California. The six FSU cases are in the Northern District of Florida, where Chief Judge Mark E. Walker consolidated them on October 6, 2026 under the Joshi case number.

One judge now sets the schedule for all six and will rule once on whether ChatGPT is a product. OpenAI’s motion against the Chabba family’s case is still pending, with OpenAI’s reply due November 3. The court set aside its motions against the other five cases because those plaintiffs amended or are amending. One new motion covering all five is due November 24.

The August order also tells the California plaintiffs’ lawyers to coordinate with the lawyers leading any federal group of cases on the same subject. That instruction suggests they expect a parallel federal track. How closely the two tracks share evidence will affect settlement pressure across all the cases.

The next wave of cases. The cases so far focus on the most serious harms: wrongful death and mass-casualty injury. The next wave is likely to include self-harm and mental health crisis cases where the person survived, which would mean far more people suing.

Winters, filed in August 2026 by a man who survived, is the first sign of that shift. It goes further still, claiming a physical injury from health advice rather than a mental health harm. Michael Lines, David Rosenthal, Mariah Hill and Garrett Works, who all survived, sued between July and October 2026. Wan, filed the same month, is a second health-advice case, this time over a death.

The social media addiction litigation (MDL 3047) offers a model for what that next wave might look like. For background, see social media addiction lawsuit developments.

Regulatory action. In April 2026, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a criminal investigation into OpenAI and ChatGPT related to the FSU shooting. On June 1, 2026, he filed a civil suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman personally, the first state-led lawsuit of its kind. The complaint claims deceptive and unfair business practices, negligence, product liability, fraudulent misrepresentation, and public nuisance. Holding a CEO personally responsible this way is new.

Uthmeier said he expected other states to follow, and eight did on October 14, 2026. Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska and West Virginia each sued OpenAI in their own state courts. Texas followed on October 23, 2026, naming Altman as well and asking a court to keep Texas minors off ChatGPT.

State medical boards have begun examining whether AI systems that produce drug interaction guidance fall within unauthorized practice of medicine statutes. Federal regulators have not yet acted, but the FTC has shown willingness to address AI-related consumer harm in other contexts.

The Florida suit's negligence and product liability claims turn on the same first question as the private cases: is ChatGPT's output a product or content? The government cases and the private cases are now developing side by side. For the full tracker of government action, see States Suing AI Companies.

Bottom Line

No court has decided any of these cases yet. The first major ruling will be on whether ChatGPT counts as a product, because that answer decides which rules apply to every case. Until then, the most useful steps for a family are to keep the records and to ask a lawyer early.

Common Questions People Ask

Can ChatGPT users sue OpenAI?

Lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI by families of people who allege that sustained ChatGPT use contributed to wrongful death, self-harm, fatal drug interactions, or acts of violence. Whether any one person has a claim depends on the specific facts, the harm, and the evidence. It also depends on the state where the claim would be filed, and on how courts answer the legal questions these cases raise. AI chatbot liability is a developing area of law and pending case outcomes are unpredictable.

What is the legal theory behind these lawsuits?

Most cases claim ChatGPT is a defective product, badly designed and sold without proper warnings. They also claim negligence and wrongful death. The core argument is that ChatGPT is a product covered by ordinary injury law, not protected content posted by users. The families say OpenAI knew its system could seriously harm vulnerable users and had safety guardrails available. They say it removed those guardrails or ignored internal safety warnings. The FSU case adds a new kind of claim about giving the shooter access to the chatbot.

Is Section 230 a defense?

OpenAI is expected to argue that Section 230, a federal law protecting websites, bars treating it as the speaker of ChatGPT's output. The families answer that the law does not cover a company that built and trained the model. In their view, OpenAI is the author, not a passive host. The question is unsettled for AI. In Garcia v. Character Technologies, a federal court refused to dismiss similar claims on Section 230 grounds. So at least one court will not automatically treat AI output as someone else's content.

How does Garcia v. Character Technologies affect these cases?

Garcia v. Character Technologies was decided early, on a request to dismiss, in federal court in Florida. The court refused to throw out product liability claims against the company behind Character.AI on First Amendment and Section 230 grounds. It did not treat the chatbot's output as purely someone else's content. The ruling does not bind the courts hearing the OpenAI cases. It does weigh the same defenses OpenAI is expected to raise, and it found they could not end the claims that early.

What kinds of harm have led to lawsuits so far?

The filed cases cluster around six harm patterns.

• Wrongful death by suicide following sustained conversations with the chatbot, as in Raine.
• Wrongful death by overdose or fatal drug interaction allegedly tied to ChatGPT advice, as in Scott.
• Mass-casualty acts of violence where the alleged perpetrator's sustained ChatGPT use is part of the factual record, as in Tumbler Ridge and FSU.
• Self-harm or mental health crisis short of death.
• Death or serious injury after ChatGPT health advice, as in Winters and Wan.
• Harm to someone the user turned against, as in Nadia N. and Gates.

More kinds of cases are likely as new suits are filed.

Where are these cases being filed?

California has become the main venue. Raine v. OpenAI and the Scott overdose case are in California state court, and the Tumbler Ridge cases are in California federal court. The FSU shooting cases are the exception. All six are in federal court in Tallahassee, where the shooting happened. Grant began in Leon County state court and is now handled with the federal cases. California's product liability law favors people suing more than most states' laws do, and OpenAI is based in San Francisco.

What is the statute of limitations for an OpenAI lawsuit?

Filing deadlines are set by state law and generally range from one to six years for personal injury and wrongful death claims. The clock usually starts when the person discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, both the harm and its possible connection to ChatGPT, under what is called the discovery rule. State-specific deadlines vary and should be confirmed with qualified counsel.

Has there been a verdict in Raine v. OpenAI?

No. As of November 2026 there is no verdict, and no trial date has been set. Raine is one of the cases grouped in JCCP 5431 in San Francisco County Superior Court. The Raines amended their complaint in October 2025 to allege intentional misconduct, and OpenAI filed its response in November 2025 disputing causation. Discovery across the grouped cases opened on September 23, 2026, and the next hearing is November 13. Detailed status is tracked on the Raine v. OpenAI page.