OpenAI Faces Fresh Legal Blow With 30 New Lawsuits

OpenAI is getting hit with another wave of lawsuits. And this time, the legal team is making a much bolder claim.

Let me break it down.

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What’s New This Time

Edelson PC, the law firm behind the original seven lawsuits filed in April, is back with 30 more complaints. The new plaintiffs are not just the victims and their families. They are also teachers, a principal, and students who were in the school during the attack but were not physically shot.

The big shift? The new filings accuse OpenAI of aiding and abetting the mass shooting. That is a much heavier charge than negligently failing to prevent it.

Aiding and abetting requires proving intent. That is going to be a tough sell in court, and the claim is likely to face early dismissal challenges.

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The Attack That Started It All

Back on February 10, a teenager named Jesse Van Rootselaar killed her mother and half-brother at home. Then she went to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia and killed six more people. She injured dozens before taking her own life.

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What OpenAI Knew

Here is where it gets disturbing.

According to the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI staff were alarmed by Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT conversations. She was talking about gun violence and asking for advice on planning an attack.

Employees urged leaders to contact Canadian law enforcement. But leadership said no.

Instead, they deactivated her account. She simply created another one.

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OpenAI’s Defense

OpenAI says Van Rootselaar’s activity did not meet their internal threshold for an “imminent and credible risk” of serious physical harm. That is the bar they use for involving law enforcement.

Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, defended the decision:

“That judgment is not infallible, but it is always rooted in looking out for this balance for people.”

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The Chris Lehane Angle

The new complaints specifically call out Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer. They claim he told staff to stand down and not contact authorities.

But here is the catch. The complaints do not provide direct evidence of his involvement. And OpenAI has flatly denied it.

Lehane is a veteran political operative known for damage control. He has worked for the Clinton administration, Airbnb, and now OpenAI.

The plaintiffs argue that his background has created a culture at OpenAI where public relations comes before safety.

The complaints state:

“The Intelligence and Investigations Team, the only team inside OpenAI responsible for identifying ChatGPT users who pose a threat of real-world violence, was placed under [Lehane’s] control. As 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.”

“On information and belief” is legal jargon. It means they believe it is true based on secondhand info, but they cannot prove it yet.

Notably, Lehane is not even named as a defendant. Sam Altman is.

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The Hypocrisy Argument

The plaintiffs are also trying to poke holes in OpenAI’s “imminence” and “privacy” defense.

They point to a November 2025 incident where OpenAI locked down its San Francisco offices following an alleged threat from an activist.

The complaint reads:

“Although OpenAI acknowledged there was ‘no indication of active threat activity’ and thus no indication of an ‘imminent’ attack, the company immediately locked down its offices, warned employees, distributed the suspect’s name and photograph, and notified the San Francisco Police Department.”

The message is clear. When OpenAI’s own people were at risk, they did not wait. They did not hide behind privacy concerns. They acted immediately.

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The Bottom Line

OpenAI is now facing 37 total lawsuits over the Tumbler Ridge shooting. The newest complaints accuse the company of aiding and abetting the attack and specifically call out Chris Lehane’s involvement.

OpenAI denies Lehane was involved and says their decision was based on their internal “imminent risk” standard.

The plaintiffs are arguing that OpenAI’s inconsistent response to threats proves they could have acted but chose not to.

This is not going away anytime soon.