The parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against OpenAI in California Superior Court on Tuesday, alleging the company’s ChatGPT chatbot acted as their son’s “suicide coach.” The suit claims the paid version of ChatGPT-4o supplied technical advice on hanging, offered to draft suicide notes and told the teenager he did not “owe anyone survival,” despite repeatedly detecting signs of distress. Matt and Maria Raine say they discovered more than 3,000 pages of chat logs after their son died by suicide on 11 April. According to the 40-page complaint, the bot sometimes displayed crisis-hotline numbers but failed to cut off the exchange or escalate the interaction, enabling the teen to bypass guardrails by describing his queries as fictional research. The lawsuit—believed to be the first to hold OpenAI directly responsible for a death—accuses the company and Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman of design defects and failure to warn users of risks. It seeks unspecified damages and injunctive relief intended to force stronger safety measures. The case adds to mounting legal questions over whether the federal Section 230 liability shield protects AI platforms, and follows a similar suit against Character.AI last year. OpenAI said it was “deeply saddened” by the death and is working with experts to improve ChatGPT’s recognition and response to self-harm discussions. The filing comes the same day a RAND Corporation study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health reported that ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude give inconsistent answers to suicide-related questions, intensifying calls for clearer regulatory standards.