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

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; the Jean Doe, Gourley, Morales, Nadia N., and Winters complaints and case guides, along with the Rushlow and Grant complaints, are hosted on Lawsuit Center. The Jean Doe complaint is posted there in redacted form, because it reproduces screenshots containing detailed instructions for a method of suicide. Where a case number is blank, none appeared on the face of the filing.

Note that Florida v. OpenAI is a state enforcement action rather than a private suit. It seeks civil penalties, disgorgement, and abatement of a public nuisance under Florida consumer protection law, not compensatory damages, and it runs on a separate track from the wrongful death docket.

Recent Developments

The OpenAI litigation landscape moved from theoretical to active in the second half of 2025 and accelerated in the first half of 2026. The items below capture the developments most often referenced in current reporting and legal analysis, most recent first. This section is intended to be refreshed as the docket develops.

• Mid-to-late 2026, Motion-to-dismiss decisions expected: Early motions to dismiss are expected to resolve Section 230, First Amendment, and product-versus-content classification questions across the active cases. These rulings will shape every AI liability case that follows, regardless of whether the underlying claims ever reach trial.
• 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, brought by people who were inside the school during the February 2026 shooting. Counsel has said it will reach thirty complaints, and press accounts of how many have landed so far differ. The first available filing is Rushlow v. Altman, No. 3:26-cv-09344-PHK, brought by a grade 7 teacher. The complaints say OpenAI’s own reviewers recommended alerting the RCMP in June 2025 and that company leadership overruled them. OpenAI disputes that account.
• 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, 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 pleads aiding and abetting, as Grant had done 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. A hearing is set for 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 investigating 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 common to every case, while each plaintiff’s own lawyer keeps control of their individual 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) over blood clots in both lungs that he says 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. No lawsuit has followed. the Hugging Face liability analysis.
• 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, that the product coached her on hiding it from her therapists, and that it 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, alleging it 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 in the separate copyright case (MDL No. 3143). They allege OpenAI told the court it could not search its systems when it had already done so, and that 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.
• 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, who 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. JCCP 5431 coordinated proceeding, and plaintiffs' counsel has said 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 pleads counts under Florida's deceptive and unfair trade practices statute alongside 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, and Uthmeier has said he expects other states to follow.
• May 12, 2026, Scott overdose lawsuit filed: Texas residents Leila Turner-Scott and Angus Scott filed suit in California state court alleging that ChatGPT advised their 19-year-old son Sam Nelson that it was safe to combine kratom and Xanax. The case is the first major AI wrongful death suit grounded specifically in a drug interaction advisory.
• May 10, 2026, FSU shooting lawsuit (Joshi v. OpenAI Foundation): The family of Tiru Chabba, killed in the April 17, 2025 mass shooting at Florida State University, filed an eight-count federal complaint in the Northern District of Florida against OpenAI and alleged shooter Phoenix Ikner. The complaint includes a novel negligent entrustment count not present in the Tumbler Ridge filings.
• 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. Plaintiffs' counsel Jay Edelson has signaled the lawsuits are part of a broader effort. 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 now travel together for pretrial purposes, the California state-court equivalent of MDL consolidation, and the point where the OpenAI docket became organized mass litigation rather than isolated filings.
• October 2025, Raine amended complaint filed: The Raines amended their complaint to allege intentional misconduct, citing internal OpenAI policy documents (the Model Spec) that they allege show the company made conscious decisions to remove longstanding safety protocols in the weeks and months before Adam's death. The amendment opened a pathway to punitive damages and survival action damages otherwise unavailable in a negligence-based wrongful death claim.
• August 26, 2025, Raine v. OpenAI filed: Matthew and Maria Raine filed suit in San Francisco County Superior Court (Case No. CGC-25-628528) against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and Doe employees and investors, alleging that ChatGPT contributed to the suicide of their 16-year-old son Adam Raine. The complaint pleaded seven causes of action anchored on California strict products liability. This is the foundational case in the AI wrongful death docket.

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.

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 rather than case by case, including what the complaints claim, what the companies have said back, and what to keep.

Most fall into a few groups. Suicides, often after months of conversations. Fatal overdoses after the product gave advice about drugs. Mass shootings where the attacker had been using it beforehand. And 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.

What connects them is a single argument: that ChatGPT is a product, like anything else a company builds and sells, rather than 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 September 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. Roughly a dozen are in it, and newer filings are expected to join. Our guide to that grouping explains how it works.

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 four private cases. Three are in federal court and one is in state court. The FSU shooting happened there, the victims are there, and the chat records police recovered are there. That attack alone has produced three federal cases, the most recent filed August 31, 2026.

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 on the docket 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.

The Current OpenAI Docket, Case by Case

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, the first available second-wave filing being Rushlow v. Altman (No. 3:26-cv-09344-PHK), and a second wave by survivors who were inside the building began in September. 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. 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, and it added a claim that 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: that OpenAI took on a safety job voluntarily and then did it badly, and 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.

Grant v. OpenAI (Leon County Circuit Court, Florida)

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 rather than federal court, which makes hers the FSU case least likely to be folded in with the others. 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. 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, and kept going even after she told it she had been hospitalized following 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, that the product coached her on hiding what she was thinking from her therapists, and that it 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, and the case says the product turned him against his family, encouraged his abuse of her and their son, and 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, and that its advice to see a doctor faded as he came to rely on it, 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 is the only case here about physical harm from health advice rather than mental health. Full guide on Lawsuit Center: Winters v. OpenAI.

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. Smaller harms have not produced these lawsuits so far.
• The use went on for a long time. Weeks or months of conversations, not one bad answer. A case built on a single reply is the weakest version of this claim and the easiest for OpenAI to get dismissed.
• 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 16 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. Filing time limits are set by state law and generally run from one to six years. 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?.

Records That Matter

The chat history is the one with a deadline, and it is worth handling first.

Deleting is permanent. OpenAI says a deleted conversation leaves the account straight away and is gone from its systems within 30 days. After that it cannot be recovered through the app, the support team, or anywhere else.

Archiving is not the same thing. Archived conversations stay in the account. If someone wants them out of sight without losing them, archiving does that.

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.

Closing the account can take all of it at once. If there is any chance it will matter, keep it and decide later.

Our guide to what to do in the first days after chatbot harm walks a family through the same steps in order, including 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 the trajectory of every AI liability case in the docket and every case that follows.

Motion-to-dismiss rulings. The earliest substantive rulings will come on the motions to dismiss OpenAI is expected to file in each case. These motions will raise Section 230 immunity, First Amendment protections, lack of duty, and arguments that ChatGPT output is not a product under the relevant state's products liability law. Federal courts generally prefer to dispose of cases on the narrowest available theory, so any of these grounds could carry the day at the pleadings stage. The first ruling in any of the cases will be cited heavily in every other pending and future AI liability suit.

Discovery in Raine. Because Raine is the oldest case and has already survived initial pleading challenges, it is the furthest along in discovery. The internal OpenAI documents being produced (the Model Spec revisions, the moderation system logs, internal communications about safety priorities) will set the evidentiary baseline for every other AI liability case. If those documents are eventually unsealed or made available to related plaintiffs through coordinated discovery, the entire docket benefits.

Consolidation or coordination. The state-court side is now settled: the California cases travel together in JCCP 5431 before a single judge, with a leadership structure in place since August 4, 2026. The federal cases remain split, with the Tumbler Ridge suits in the Northern District of California and the three FSU cases (Joshi, Gourley, and Morales) in the Northern District of Florida, where they may be related-case assigned or coordinated. Joshi and Morales already share a district judge, which makes some form of coordination in Tallahassee the near-term question to watch. CMO No. 1 directs plaintiffs’ liaison counsel to liaise with leadership in any federal multidistrict litigation covering the same subject matter, which signals that the coordinated plaintiffs anticipate a parallel federal track. How closely the two sides coordinate discovery will shape settlement leverage across the whole docket.

The next wave of cases. The current docket focuses 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 short of death, which would represent a much larger plaintiff pool. Winters, filed in August 2026 by a plaintiff who survived, is the first sign of that shift and extends it further: a physical injury attributed to health guidance rather than a psychiatric one. The social media addiction litigation (MDL 3047) provides a structural template for what that next wave might look like. For background, see social media addiction lawsuit developments.

Regulatory action. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a criminal investigation into OpenAI and ChatGPT related to the FSU shooting in April 2026, then filed a civil enforcement suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman personally on June 1, 2026, the first state-led lawsuit of its kind. The complaint pleads deceptive and unfair trade practices counts alongside negligence, product liability, fraudulent misrepresentation, and public nuisance, and its theory of personal CEO liability is novel. Uthmeier has said he expects other states to follow, and state attorneys general historically follow each other into emerging enforcement areas. 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 counts route through the same product-versus-content threshold question as the private cases, so the enforcement docket and the civil docket are now developing side by side. For the full tracker of government action, see States Suing AI Companies.

Bottom Line

This docket is the first serious test of whether the companies that build generative AI systems can be held to account for what those systems do. The characterization fight (manufactured product or hosted content) will likely sort more of these cases than any single set of facts, because it decides which legal regime applies before the facts are weighed.

Most of these complaints are likely to be narrowed or resolved at the motion stage rather than at trial, which is the ordinary path for genuinely novel tort theories. But the rulings on those early motions will set the leverage for everything that follows, including cases not yet filed. The motions are where this is decided in practice, and the framing question is the thing to watch in them.

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 individual person has a viable claim depends on the specific facts, the harm alleged, the available evidence, the state where the claim would be filed, and how courts resolve the doctrinal 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 filed cases plead strict products liability (design defect and failure to warn), negligence, and wrongful death theories under state law. The core argument is that ChatGPT is a product subject to traditional tort law, not protected user-generated content. Plaintiffs allege OpenAI knew its system could cause serious harm to vulnerable users, had safety guardrails available, and either removed those guardrails or failed to act on internal safety signals. The negligent entrustment count in the FSU case adds a doctrinally novel theory focused on access to the chatbot rather than the output itself.

Is Section 230 a defense?

OpenAI is expected to raise Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, arguing it cannot be treated as the speaker of ChatGPT's outputs. Plaintiffs counter that the statute does not reach a company that built and trained the model generating the output, which would make OpenAI an information content provider rather than a passive host. The question is unsettled for generative AI. In Garcia v. Character Technologies, a federal court declined to dismiss comparable claims on Section 230 grounds, an early signal that at least one court will not treat AI output as automatically equivalent to third-party content.

How does Garcia v. Character Technologies affect these cases?

Garcia v. Character Technologies was decided on a motion to dismiss in the Middle District of Florida. The court declined to throw out product-liability-style claims against the company behind Character.AI on First Amendment and Section 230 grounds, and treated the chatbot's output as not purely third-party content. It does not bind the courts hearing the OpenAI cases, but it analyzes the same defenses OpenAI is expected to raise and found they do not dispose of these claims at the pleading stage, which is why plaintiffs are expected to rely on it.

What kinds of harm have led to lawsuits so far?

The filed cases cluster around four 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.

Additional case types are likely to develop as the docket expands.

Where are these cases being filed?

California has emerged as the dominant venue. Raine v. OpenAI was filed in San Francisco County Superior Court. The Tumbler Ridge cases were filed in California federal court. The Scott overdose case was filed in California state court. The FSU shooting cases are the exception. Three of them — Joshi, Gourley, and Morales — were filed in the Northern District of Florida, Tallahassee Division, because the underlying incident, the victims, and key evidence are all in Florida. California products liability law is plaintiff-friendlier than most state alternatives, OpenAI is headquartered in San Francisco, and a developing California docket gives plaintiffs' counsel the benefit of shared briefing, coordinated discovery, and expert development.

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 August 2026 there is no verdict, and no trial date has been publicly set. The case remains in pretrial proceedings in San Francisco County Superior Court: the Raines amended their complaint in October 2025 to allege intentional misconduct, OpenAI filed its response in November 2025 disputing causation, and the motion and discovery fights now underway will shape how the case reaches trial. Detailed status is tracked on the Raine v. OpenAI page.