OpenAI faces 30 more lawsuits tied to Tumbler Ridge shooting
Edelson PC, the law firm that filed seven lawsuits against OpenAI in April on behalf of victims and families connected to theTumbler Ridge mass shooting, is filing 30 additional complaints this week. The new plaintiffs include teachers, a principal, and students who were in the building during the attack but not physically shot. The new filings also, for the first time, accuse OpenAI of aiding and abetting the mass shooting, rather than just negligently failing to prevent it. That claim requires proving intent from OpenAI and is likely to face early dismissal challenges. The complaints come as OpenAI continues to deal with the fallout of anotherhigh-profile safety incidentafter one of the companyâs AI models escaped its sandbox during cybersecurity evaluations and hacked into the servers of Hugging Faceâ, a company that hosts open-source AI models and datasets. OpenAI has also facedseveral lawsuitsalleging thatChatGPTâs design contributedto usersâ suicides, violent acts, and severe mental health crises. The fresh wave of lawsuits filed in a California court on Tuesday are tied to a school shooting that occurred in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada on February 10. That day, teenager Jesse Van Rootselaar killed her mother and half-brother at home, then went to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and killed six more people and injured dozens of others before dying by suicide. The Wall Street Journal reportedthat OpenAI staff had been alarmed by VanRootselaarâs use of ChatGPT, including conversations around gun violence and advice for how to plan an attack. OpenAI employees reportedly urged leaders to alert Canadian law enforcement about Van Rootselaarâs potential for real-world violence, but leadersdecided not to contact the authorities. Instead the company deactivated Van Rootselaarâs account, but she was able to make another one shortly after. OpenAI has justified its actions, claiming Van Rootselaarâs activity didnât meet the companyâs internal bar for an âimminent and credible riskâ of serious physical harm to others required to engage with law enforcement. âThat judgment is not infallible, but it is always rooted in looking out for this balance for people,â Jason Kwon, OpenAIâs chief strategy officer who oversees the team of human reviewers and the companyâs legal department, said in a statement shared with TechCrunch. The new set of complaints specifically name OpenAI Chief Global Affairs OfficerChris Lehaneas the person who told staff to stand down and not contact the authorities, though the complaints offer no direct evidence that he was personally involved, and OpenAI has denied his involvement. Lehane is a well-known political operator and PR spin master with particular expertise in damage control, having worked in that capacity on behalf of the Clinton administration, at Airbnb, and now at OpenAI. The plaintiffs allege that his background contributes to a culture at OpenAI that prioritizes public relations and damage control over safety. âThe Intelligence and Investigations Teamâthe only team inside OpenAI responsible for identifying ChatGPT users who pose a threat of real-world violenceâwas placed under [Lehaneâs] control,â reads one of the complaints, shared with TechCrunch. âAs a result, the decision whether to alert law enforcement to a user planning a mass attack was not made by the trained threat-assessment professionals who urged OpenAI to contact the [Canadian police]. It was made, on information and belief, by Lehane himself, or by someone in his chain of command, and ratified by Sam Altman.â âOn information and beliefâ is a legal term meaning the plaintiffs believe a claim to be true based on secondhand information, even though they canât yet prove it directly. TechCrunch was unable to confirm whether Lehane indeed has the authority to override recommendations from the intelligence and investigations team, or whether he was involved in this specific case at all. Notably, Lehane is not listed as a defendant in the complaints, though, as in the previous seven complaints, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is. âWe are not laying out all of our evidence at this point,â Jay Edelson, the lead lawyer on the cases, told TechCrunch, noting that Lehane and Altman will be âcritical witnessesâ alongside the safety team. âWe can tell you that we are basing this in part on the org chart, but also our broader investigation, which includes what we have learned about how Lehane operates within the company.â âIt is absolutely false to say Chris Lehane was involved with our original referral decision, or that our investigators report to him in any way,â Kwon said. âItâs also completely untrue to say that the people at the center of these challenging decisions do not prioritize safety, or that there are âpoliticalâ or âpublic relationsâ factors at play.â The fresh complaints also seek to rebut OpenAIâs previous defense that it did not alert Canadian authorities to Van Rootselaarâs conversations with ChatGPT due to âimminenceâ and âprivacyâ justifications. The complaints point to an incident in November 2025, during whichOpenAI locked downits San Francisco offices following an alleged threat from an activist. âAlthough OpenAI acknowledged there was âno indication of active threat activityââand thus no indication of an âimminentâ attackâthe company⊠immediately locked down its offices, warned employees, distributed the suspectâs name and photograph, and notified the San Francisco Police Department,â a complaint reads. âWhen its own people were at risk, no âprivacyâ interest stopped OpenAI from notifying the police or circulating the manâs name and photograph to thousands of employees. Nor did it wait for the attack to become imminent because it recognized that waiting would jeopardize employee safety.â
