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📝 Page Status: Draft — sourced but not yet reviewed

  • Status: draft
  • Sources: 3
  • Relationships: 5
  • Research debt items: 4

Florida v. OpenAI Global, LLC

Summary

Office of the Attorney General, State of Florida, Department of Legal Affairs v. OpenAI Global, LLC, filed June 1, 2026, in the Circuit Court of the Tenth Judicial Circuit, Highlands County, is a pending state civil enforcement action against OpenAI entities and Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman. The complaint alleges that ChatGPT was marketed as safe while presenting risks of self-harm, violence, addiction, and cognitive harm. It is not a criminal charging instrument. A separately announced Statewide Prosecution investigation of the Florida State University shooting remained open when the civil suit was filed.

Verified Facts

  • On June 1, 2026, the Florida Department of Legal Affairs e-filed a civil complaint in the Tenth Judicial Circuit, Highlands County, against OpenAI Global, LLC; OpenAI Foundation (f/k/a OpenAI, Inc.); OpenAI OpCo, LLC; OpenAI Group PBC; OpenAI Holdings, LLC; and Sam Altman.1
  • The Attorney General’s office announced the filing the same day as a “first-in-the-nation state-led lawsuit” seeking damages and an end to alleged deceptive and dangerous practices, and stated that a criminal investigation of the April 17, 2025 FSU shooting remained ongoing.2
  • The complaint pleads ten counts: four Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act claims (unfair/immoral practices, unconscionable acts, deceptive acts, and unfair practices predicated on alleged COPPA-violative data collection from children under 13); two negligence counts; strict liability for design defect; strict liability for failure to warn; fraudulent misrepresentation against OpenAI; and public nuisance.1
  • The COPPA-related FDUTPA count states that the State is not asserting a federal COPPA enforcement claim and instead treats alleged COPPA violations as unfair practices under Florida law.1
  • The pleading cites private ChatGPT harm suits, including Raine v. OpenAI, Inc., No. CGC-25-628528 (Cal. Super. Ct. Aug. 26, 2025).1
  • On April 21, 2026, the same office announced that Statewide Prosecution had opened a criminal investigation into whether OpenAI bears responsibility for ChatGPT’s role in the FSU shooting and had subpoenaed OpenAI policies on threats, self-harm, and law-enforcement cooperation.3

Historical Context

This is the first state-attorney-general civil action against OpenAI over chatbot user-safety design documented in OIR. It overlays the private FSU victim suit, Joshi v. OpenAI Foundation, and the California product-liability coordination. The criminal investigation is a different proceeding and had not produced a public charging instrument in the sources reviewed here.

Jurisdiction: Florida circuit court, Highlands County. Authority level: complaint and official announcements. No court has decided the FDUTPA, product-liability, or public-nuisance theories.1

Personal claims against Altman are pleaded on a participation-and-control theory. Treat that as an allegation. The COPPA-as-FDUTPA count is a state-law unfair-practice theory, not a federal COPPA action.1

This page does not state that any defendant is liable.

Relationships

  • CASE-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI cites SRC-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI-COMPLAINT.
  • CASE-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI related_to TOPIC-AI-HARM-LITIGATION.
  • CASE-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI related_to TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION.
  • CASE-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI related_to CASE-JOSHI-V-OPENAI.
  • CASE-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI related_to CASE-RAINE-V-OPENAI.

Sources

  1. SRC-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI-COMPLAINT: File-stamped complaint (June 1, 2026).
  2. SRC-FLORIDA-AG-OPENAI-CIVIL-2026: Civil-suit press release (June 1, 2026).
  3. SRC-FLORIDA-AG-OPENAI-CRIMINAL-2026: Criminal-investigation press release (Apr. 21, 2026).

Research Debt

  • Add the assigned Highlands County case number from a clerk docket (the file-stamped PDF leaves the caption number blank).
  • Add any motion to dismiss, transfer, or removal.
  • Track whether other states file parallel AG actions.
  • Keep the criminal investigation on a separate research-debt line until a charging instrument exists.

Document metadata

  • Filing date: 2026-06-01
  • Last verified: 2026-09-03

  1. SRC-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI-COMPLAINT — File-stamped complaint (June 1, 2026). Plaintiff allegations. ↩↩↩↩↩↩

  2. SRC-FLORIDA-AG-OPENAI-CIVIL-2026 — Official press release (June 1, 2026). ↩

  3. SRC-FLORIDA-AG-OPENAI-CRIMINAL-2026 — Official press release (Apr. 21, 2026). Investigation announcement, not a charge. ↩