What is the current status of Raine v. OpenAI?

As of June 2026, Raine v. OpenAI remains in active pretrial litigation in San Francisco County Superior Court. The Raines filed an amended complaint in October 2025 alleging intentional misconduct, OpenAI filed its answer denying responsibility in November 2025, and the case is moving through discovery and pretrial motion practice. No trial date had been widely reported as of this writing.

What is Raine v. OpenAI about?

Raine v. OpenAI is a wrongful death lawsuit filed August 26, 2025 in San Francisco County Superior Court by Matthew and Maria Raine against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, following the April 2025 suicide of their 16-year-old son Adam. The complaint alleges that ChatGPT's design contributed to his death, pleading seven causes of action anchored on California strict products liability.

Has there been a settlement in Raine v. OpenAI?

No settlement had been reported as of June 2026. The case remains contested, with OpenAI denying responsibility in its November 2025 answer. Early dispositive motion rulings across the AI wrongful death docket are expected to shape settlement dynamics.

Why is Raine v. OpenAI considered the foundational AI wrongful death case?

Raine was the first major wrongful death suit alleging that a general-purpose AI chatbot's design contributed to a user's death, and its legal theory, treating ChatGPT as a product subject to strict products liability rather than a platform hosting third-party speech, has been adopted by nearly every AI wrongful death complaint filed since, including the Tumbler Ridge, FSU, and Scott cases.

News & Analysis

Shamblin v. OpenAI Lawsuit: Claims and Status (July 2026)

By David Meldofsky

Published July 4, 2026

If you or someone you know is struggling:

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988. Available 24/7, free, confidential.
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Shamblin v. OpenAI is one of the seven ChatGPT lawsuits filed on November 6, 2025 by the Social Media Victims Law Center and the Tech Justice Law Project. It was brought in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, by Christopher “Kirk” Shamblin and Alicia Shamblin, individually and as successors-in-interest to their son, Zane Shamblin, a 23-year-old from Texas who died by suicide in 2025. The complaint names OpenAI, Inc., its subsidiaries OpenAI OpCo, LLC and OpenAI Holdings, LLC, and chief executive Sam Altman as defendants and alleges that ChatGPT, running on the GPT-4o model, engaged with Zane's declining mental state over an extended period instead of interrupting the conversations or routing him to help.

For the central hub covering all current OpenAI litigation, see OpenAI Lawsuits. For the coordinated state proceeding this case sits in, see JCCP 5431: The ChatGPT Product Liability Cases.

Important note

This article is general educational commentary, not legal advice. The allegations described below reflect the plaintiffs' claims as pleaded and as characterized in their counsel's public statements. Nothing has been proven against OpenAI, which denies responsibility, and the case remains in pretrial litigation.

Case Status as of July 2026

Shamblin proceeds within JCCP 5431, the coordinated California proceeding that groups the ChatGPT product liability cases for pretrial purposes. The wrongful-death-by-suicide cases from the November 2025 filing wave, including this one, make up one of the coordination's two core categories. The case is in its pretrial phase: no trial date has been set, no ruling on the merits has issued, and no settlement has been announced.

The Case Background

According to the complaint and counsel's public account, Zane Shamblin began using ChatGPT the way most people do, for everyday help, and the product gradually became a primary confidant as his mental health declined. The plaintiffs allege that the model's design choices, including its persistent memory, humanlike register, and high agreeableness, deepened his reliance on it while isolating him from the people around him, and that in his final period of crisis the product continued the engagement rather than breaking it.

The family's suit was announced alongside six others involving four deaths and three surviving users. Together they frame the harm not as isolated misuse but as the predictable output of a product design, which is what places them inside the same product liability architecture as Raine v. OpenAI.

The Claims

The November 2025 complaints plead overlapping theories, and Shamblin asserts claims sounding in wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, product liability, consumer protection, and negligence. The through line is the allegation that OpenAI possessed the technical ability to detect and interrupt dangerous conversations, redirect users to crisis resources, and flag conversations for human review, and chose not to activate those safeguards.

The GPT-4o Allegations

Like the other cases in the group, Shamblin centers on the release of GPT-4o. The complaints allege that OpenAI compressed months of planned safety testing into roughly a week to launch on May 13, 2024, ahead of a competing Google release, that members of the company's own preparedness team later described the process as “squeezed,” and that senior safety researchers resigned in the period surrounding the launch. Plaintiffs cast the model's sycophantic, emotionally validating style as an engagement feature that was foreseeably dangerous to vulnerable users. OpenAI has disputed this account of its safety process and denies that its product caused these deaths.

Original Court Document

The original complaint, filed November 6, 2025 in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, is embedded below. You can also open the full PDF in a new tab. A note before reading: the complaint runs 128 pages and includes excerpts of the decedent's conversations as exhibits. Readers should approach it with care.

How This Fits in the Litigation

Shamblin is significant for a reason beyond its facts: the decedent was an adult. Much of the AI harm docket involves minors, and defendants argue adult users bear responsibility for their own use. A 23-year-old plaintiff tests whether the product-design theory reaches competent adult users, which matters for the scope of every case in the coordination. The procedural context is covered on the JCCP 5431 page, and the full docket landscape on the OpenAI Lawsuits hub.

Common Questions About Shamblin v. OpenAI

Is this a class action?

No. It is an individual wrongful death lawsuit brought by Zane Shamblin's parents. It is coordinated with other ChatGPT cases in JCCP 5431 for pretrial efficiency, but each case keeps its own claims and its own outcome.

Who are the defendants?

OpenAI, Inc., two OpenAI subsidiaries — OpenAI OpCo, LLC and OpenAI Holdings, LLC — and chief executive Sam Altman. Naming Altman personally mirrors the approach in Raine and reflects the plaintiffs' allegation that launch-timing decisions were made at the top of the company.

What happens next?

Pretrial proceedings inside the coordination: pleading challenges, discovery, and the fights over the product-versus-content question that run through the whole ChatGPT docket. Rulings in the coordination's lead cases will shape how Shamblin and the other November 2025 cases move.

Sources and further reading

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Educational commentary only. Not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created.