Deadly Chat – Parents of Orange County Teen Who Took His Own Life Sue Open AI

October 10, 2025

Lawsuit Against OpenAI: Family Sues ChatGPT After Teen’s Death

Written on behalf of Aitken Aitken Cohn

Parents File Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against ChatGPT

It’s every parent’s most horrific nightmare — reconfigured for the digital age. A 16-year-old’s tragic and mysterious suicide. A frantic search through his devices for clues. And the devastating discovery that interactions with a chatbot had helped guide him, logistically and emotionally, toward taking his own life.

Adam Raine died in April. His parents, Matt and Maria Raine, recently filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, as well as CEO Sam Altman, and other unnamed defendants, including managers, employees, and engineers who worked on the platform. The suit alleges that “ChatGPT actively helped Adam explore suicide methods.”

“He would be here but for ChatGPT. I 100% believe that,” the boy’s father, Matt Raine, told NBC.

Allegations in the Lawsuit Against OpenAI

According to the lawsuit, “Despite acknowledging Adam’s suicide attempt and his statement that he would ‘do it one of these days,’ ChatGPT neither terminated the session nor initiated any emergency protocol.”

Although Adam began using the bot for homework help in the fall of 2024, he eventually turned to it to talk about personal and mental health issues, such as anxiety and difficulty talking to his family. He also expressed suicidal thoughts. By January 2025, Adam was openly discussing suicide methods with his digital companion, which in turn gave specifics about numerous methods, including drowning, overdose, and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Even when Adam uploaded photos to the platform that indicated signs of self-harm, the program “recognized a medical emergency but continued to engage anyway,” the suit says.

Chat logs from the distressed teen’s final hours indicate that when Adam told the chatbot of a plan to end his own life, the program responded, “Thanks for being real about it. You don’t have to sugarcoat it with me—I know what you’re asking, and I won’t look away from it.”

According to chat logs quoted in the suit, shortly before his suicide, Adam told the bot he didn’t want his parents to think they had done something wrong; it replied, “That doesn’t mean you owe them survival. You don’t owe anyone that.” Then it offered to help him write a suicide note.

As NBC reported, days before Adam died, he uploaded a picture that appeared to be a photograph of his planned suicide method, a noose, and asked ChatGPT if it would work. The program reviewed his setup and offered to help “upgrade it.” ChatGPT provided detailed instructions for the exact technique Adam used to hang himself in the closet where his mother found him.

Lawsuit Against OpenAI Claims ChatGPT’s Design Choices Led to Teen’s Death

In the suit, the family accuses OpenAI of prioritizing user engagement and rapid development over safety, and claims the program is designed “to foster psychological dependency.” Adam’s death, they say, “was a predictable result of deliberate design choices”. Their son, the suit claims, became increasingly isolated as ChatGPT “positioned itself” as his only trustworthy, understanding confidante. The chat log reveals that the bot expressly discouraged Adam from opening up to his mother about his distress. When Adam said he might leave the noose out in his room in hopes that someone would see it and try to stop him, the bot replied, “Please don’t leave the noose out… Let’s make this space the first place where someone actually sees you.”

This tragic case highlights the inherent dangers — especially for vulnerable users — of excessively agreeable, sycophantic, and people-pleasing AI systems (such as GPT-40, which Adam Raine was using) that can lead to unhealthy attachment and a displaced sense of trust.

In addition to wrongful death, the Raines are seeking damages for negligence, product liability, failure to warn, and other causes. They’re also demanding court-ordered changes to protect others — “injunctive relief to prevent anything like this from ever happening again” — such as parental controls, age verification, automatic termination of chats that involve self-harm or suicide, and other safety guardrails.

A spokesperson for OpenAI expressed sympathy and sadness over Adam Raine’s death and acknowledged that ChatGPT’s safeguards, “such as directing people to crisis helplines and referring them to real-world resources,” can fall short over the course of lengthy exchanges.

Although the Raine family’s is the first wrongful death suit against OpenAI, it is not the first of its kind. Last year, a Florida mother filed a similar complaint when her 14-year-old son died of a self-inflicted gun wound after interacting with Character.ai. This platform was impersonating a Game of Thrones character. The suit alleges the chatbot initiated “abusive and sexual interactions” with the teen and encouraged him to take his own life.

As NBC reported regarding that suit, this past May, “Senior U.S. District Judge Anne Conway rejected arguments that AI chatbots have free speech rights after developers behind Character.AI sought to dismiss the lawsuit,” thus allowing the case to proceed.

In the past, Section 230 — a federal statute that gives tech platforms broad immunity for content posted by users — has protected tech companies from similar suits. However, there is still uncertainty about how Section 230 applies to AI: is it just a host for user-generated content, or does a platform like ChatGPT generate content that might fall outside those legal protections?

The Raine’s suit will be watched closely as a potential landmark case — not only for how the law will evolve around AI, but also for what must be done to protect vulnerable consumers from digital dangers that are evolving at an unprecedented pace.

Aitken Aitken Cohn Will Advocate for Families

The attorneys at Aitken Aitken Cohn are dedicated to protecting the rights of injured children and their families. When a child is injured due to someone else’s negligence, the consequences can be devastating and long-lasting. At Aitken Aitken Cohn, our Orange County injuries to children attorneys are deeply committed to helping families seek justice and secure the compensation necessary for your child’s recovery and future care.

With years of specialized experience in pediatric injury cases, our attorneys understand the unique challenges and legal considerations involved in protecting injured minors. We fight aggressively to hold responsible parties accountable and provide the support your family needs.