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📝 Page Status: Draft — sourced but not yet reviewed

  • Status: draft
  • Sources: 2
  • Relationships: 5
  • Research debt items: 4

Joshi v. OpenAI Foundation

Summary

Joshi v. OpenAI Foundation, No. 4:26-cv-00222 (N.D. Fla.), is a pending diversity product-liability and wrongful-death action arising from the April 17, 2025 shooting at Florida State University. Vandana Joshi, as personal representative of the estate of Tiru Chabba, sued OpenAI entities and the alleged shooter, Phoenix Ikner. The complaint is allegations only; no merits ruling is recorded in the sources reviewed here.

Verified Facts

  • On May 10, 2026, Vandana Joshi, as personal representative of the estate of Tiru Chabba, filed a complaint in the Northern District of Florida, Tallahassee Division, against OpenAI Foundation (f/k/a OpenAI, Inc.) and multiple OpenAI affiliates, plus Phoenix Ikner.1
  • The complaint alleges that Chabba, a regional vice president for Aramark present on campus as a business invitee, was among two people killed and five others injured in the April 17, 2025 shooting, and that beneficiaries include the surviving spouse and two minor children.1
  • Plaintiff alleges diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 and that venue is proper because a substantial part of the events occurred in the district, including Ikner’s alleged use of ChatGPT to plan a shooting at FSU.1
  • The complaint pleads eight counts: (I) negligence against the OpenAI defendants; (II) gross negligence against the OpenAI defendants; (III) strict products liability — defective design; (IV) strict products liability — negligent design; (V) strict products liability — failure to warn; (VI) negligent entrustment against the OpenAI defendants; (VII) battery against Ikner; and (VIII) Florida wrongful death under Fla. Stat. §§ 768.16–768.26 against all defendants.1
  • On April 21, 2026, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that the Office of Statewide Prosecution had opened a criminal investigation into whether OpenAI bears criminal responsibility for ChatGPT’s role in the same shooting, and that the office had subpoenaed OpenAI policies on user threats, self-harm, and cooperation with law enforcement.2

Historical Context

Joshi is the leading federal civil action by a shooting victim’s estate against a general-purpose chatbot vendor. It sits beside Florida v. OpenAI Global, LLC, the later state enforcement suit, and a separately announced criminal investigation. Unlike Garcia v. Character Technologies, Inc. and Raine v. OpenAI, Inc., the decedent here is alleged to be a third-party victim rather than a chatbot user.

Jurisdiction: Northern District of Florida. Authority level: complaint only. The pleading does not decide whether ChatGPT is a “product,” whether Section 230 or the First Amendment bars the claims, or whether any output caused the shooting.1

The negligent-entrustment count is an unusual theory in this cluster: it treats access to ChatGPT as entrustment of a dangerous instrumentality rather than publication of answers. Treat that as a pleading choice, not a holding. Florida’s criminal investigation is not this civil docket and had produced no public charging instrument in the sources reviewed here.2

This page does not state that any defendant is liable.

Relationships

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

Sources

  1. SRC-JOSHI-V-OPENAI-COMPLAINT: Joshi complaint (May 10, 2026).
  2. SRC-FLORIDA-AG-OPENAI-CRIMINAL-2026: Florida AG criminal-investigation press release (Apr. 21, 2026).

Research Debt

  • Add any later docket events (answer, motion to dismiss, transfer) from CourtListener rather than secondary trackers.
  • Confirm whether the Morales family or other FSU victims filed separate civil actions.
  • Add any charging instrument if the Statewide Prosecution investigation produces one.
  • Capture OpenAI’s public statement on the FSU matter from a primary company page if used as a fact.

Document metadata

  • Filing date: 2026-05-10
  • Last verified: 2026-09-03

  1. SRC-JOSHI-V-OPENAI-COMPLAINT — Original complaint (May 10, 2026). Plaintiff allegations; this page does not reproduce alleged chatbot content or operational details of the attack. ↩↩↩↩↩

  2. SRC-FLORIDA-AG-OPENAI-CRIMINAL-2026 — Official press release (Apr. 21, 2026). Announces an investigation, not a charge or finding of liability. ↩↩