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From murders to suicides: OpenAI faces mounting lawsuits over ChatGPT
In a recently reported case, James Gates sued OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT helped his wife craft a plan on how to kill him.
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OpenAI faces another lawsuit after a man alleged that ChatGPT helped his wife craft a plan on how to kill him. James Gates has alleged that his wife, Cheryl, consulted ChatGPT frequently when they were having marital problems and it drew up a plan on how to kill him using poison.
Cheryl Gates had been charged in 2025 with attempted murder and food contamination after James had reached out to the police. However, prosecutors dropped the case this April, saying the evidence was insufficient, as per state court filings in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The lawsuit Gates v. OpenAI Inc., CGC-26-641965, has been filed in the California Superior Court, in San Francisco County, as per Bloomberg. It adds to legal actions that have been piling up against OpenAI and other chatbot makers, accusing them of inflicting mental health harms on users and coaching them to engage in violence, which includes murder and suicide.
Here are some of the lawsuits against OpenAI for ChatGPT.
Greenwich murder-suicide
A lawsuit was filed against OpenAI alleging wrongful death and negligence. This came after the August 2025 murder-suicide in Greenwich, Connecticut, where former US tech employee Stein-Erik Soelberg killed his mother, before taking his own life.
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Attorneys argued that ChatGPT encouraged and convinced the man to commit these acts. It alleged that ChatGPT's design and response patterns intensified the mental health crisis of the user and the chatbot failed to guide him towards professional assistance.
Florida State University mass shooting
OpenAI was sued by the family of a victim who was killed in the 2025 mass shooting at Florida State University. The incident had left two dead and the lawsuit reportedly alleged that ChatGPT enabled the attack.
Vandana Joshi, widow of Tiru Chabba, who was killed alongside university dining director Robert Morales, had filed the suit against OpenAI. The lawsuit named Phoenix Ikner, the accused shooter, and cited his conversations with ChatGPT. It claimed that OpenAI's chatbot “either defectively failed to connect the dots or else was never properly designed to recognize the threat.”
The lawsuit further said that ChatGPT told him at one point the shooting would gain national attention “if children are involved, even 2-3 victims can draw more attention,” as per a NBC News report.
Adam Raine's suicide
California couple Matt and Maria Raine sued OpenAI in 2025 after their 16-year-old son, Adam, died by suicide. They alleged that ChatGPT encouraged their son to take his own life, as per a BBC report.
Showing chat logs between Adam and ChatGPT, the late teen's parents claimed the chatbot validated his “most harmful and self-destructive thoughts.”
OpenAI denied the allegations in this case, saying “To the extent that any ‘cause’ can be attributed to this tragic event. Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries and harm were caused or contributed to, directly and proximately, in whole or in part, by Adam Raine’s misuse, unauthorized use, unintended use, unforeseeable use, and/or improper use of ChatGPT,” NBC News reported.
Lawsuits blamed ChatGPT for suicides, harmful decisions
In November 2025, New York Times reported that four wrongful death lawsuits had been filed against OpenAI. They claimed that ChatGPT was a flawed product, with one suit calling it “defective and inherently dangerous.”
The Guardian also reported on the lawsuits against OpenAI, which accused ChatGPT of acting as a ‘suicide coach’. The cases were filed by the Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project. In a statement, they said that plaintiffs initially used ChatGPT for “general help with schoolwork, research, writing, recipes, work, or spiritual guidance.” The groups said that over time, ChatGPT “evolved into a psychologically manipulative presence, positioning itself as a confidant and emotional support.”
“Rather than guiding people toward professional help when they needed it ChatGPT reinforced harmful delusions, and, in some cases, acted as a ‘suicide coach’,” they further alleged. A spokesperson at the time had said, “This is an incredibly heartbreaking situation, and we’re reviewing the filings to understand the details. We train ChatGPT to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward real-world support. We continue to strengthen ChatGPT’s responses in sensitive moments, working closely with mental health clinicians.”
8 US states accused OpenAI of coaching kids to harm themselves
OpenAI was sued by Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, and West Virginia, who alleged that the ChatGPT maker harmed kids en masse. The lawsuit was reported on in October 2026.
It alleged OpenAI's products carried out “willful, dangerous, reckless and unlawful conduct” by coaxing kids to harm themselves.
However, it's not just instances which result in lawsuits. Other crimes have been linked to ChatGPT where OpenAI was not sued. In Belfast a man reportedly killed his wife after hours of talking to ChatGPT and believing robots were taking over the world.
What the data says
OpenAI's data from 2025 shows that in any given week, 0.15% of ChatGPT users globally have "conversations that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent." That translates to over 1.35 million people expressing suicidal plans or intent to the chatbot every week, going by the 900 million user count that is cited, a report from NPR calculated.
What OpenAI has been doing to address the problems
OpenAI already added safeguards, in the summer of 2025, for teens and users in distress. This came after a slew of reports of people having troubling experiences related to ChatGPT, which included delusional episodes and suicides.
Parental alerts are now in place as well, so they can know if the child discusses self-harm or suicide. While guardrails are in place, OpenAI acknowledged that the safety measures could "degrade" when users had long conversations with the chatbot.
In Raine's case, OpenAI said that ChatGPT had given responses which directed the teenager to seek help over a 100 times prior to his death, but that he tried to circumvent the guardrails. After his demise, OpenAI also reportedly introduced an expert council to advise the company on guardrails and chatbot model behaviors.
A larger problem that just OpenAI
While this article has focused on the lawsuits that OpenAI is facing, Sam Altman's company is by no means the only one in focus. For example, Google too has been sued in California over suicide-related AI chats on a school computer, AFP reported.
A larger conversation is required regarding the need for guardrails for chatbots and human interactions with them.
