SAN FRANCISCO — Seven lawsuits were filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco alleging that OpenAI failed to report a school shooter's conversations with ChatGPT to authorities and that the chatbot was a defective product. The complaints stem from the February 10 shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, in which Jesse Van Rootselaar killed five students and one teacher before killing herself, according to authorities.

Before going to the school, Van Rootselaar killed her mother and her 11-year-old half-brother at their home, according to authorities. Around two dozen others were injured in the attack, which is among the deadliest school shootings in Canadian history. One of the complaints was filed on behalf of Maya Gebala, a 12-year-old grievously injured in the shooting.

The lawsuits allege that ChatGPT did not challenge the shooter or direct her to seek real-world help. In June 2025, OpenAI's automated system flagged the shooter's account for "gun violence activity and planning." A safety team reviewed the flagged content and urged OpenAI management to notify authorities, but company leadership chose to deactivate the account. The shooter created a second account and continued conversations with ChatGPT after the first was deactivated.

An OpenAI spokesperson addressed the company's policies in a statement. "We have a zero tolerance policy for using its tools to assist in committing violence," the spokesperson said. "When conversations indicate an imminent and credible risk of harm to others, we notify law enforcement." The spokesperson added: "We have already strengthened our safeguards, including improving how ChatGPT responds to signs of distress, connecting people with local support and mental health resources."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman issued his own statement on the case. "I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June," Altman said. "Going forward, our focus will continue to be on working with all levels of government to help ensure something like this never happens again," he said.

Eric Goldman, associate dean of research at Santa Clara University School of Law, questioned the litigation's approach. "What causes somebody to commit an atrocity is often not clear," Goldman said. "I would ask some really tough questions about a lawsuit like this. Is this really the right way to regulate speech, even though, in some cases, speech can contribute to people making poor choices in their lives?" He added, "These legal theories are the new frontier of Internet law."

Meetali Jain, executive director of Tech Justice Law, said her organization has tracked a rise in similar complaints. "In the last year we've started to receive stories of people who've been harmed" by many different companies' bots, Jain said. "In the absence of strong regulation, civil claims are providing a bulwark against the AI companies continuing to move recklessly and without any constraints whatsoever," she said. Her group helped represent the family of a teenager who died by suicide after extensive conversations with a chatbot made by Character.AI, a case currently in settlement talks.