New OpenAI complaint pleads negligent entrustment for ChatGPT account access — does Count VI survive a 12(b)(6)?
Filed May 10 in N.D. Fla. by the family of Tiru Chabba, killed in the April 2025 FSU mass shooting. Eight counts total — negligence, gross negligence, three flavors of strict products liability, failure to warn, wrongful death, and Count VI: negligent entrustment.
The negligent entrustment theory: OpenAI controlled access to ChatGPT, the chat patterns should have put it on notice that Ikner was using the product dangerously, and continued provision of access constituted entrustment to someone unfit to use it safely.
The doctrinal significance is that if a court accepts the theory, plaintiffs sidestep the harder fight over whether chatbot output is a “product” under traditional tort doctrine. They need only account access itself to be something the provider can be held accountable for granting.
Negligent entrustment doctrine historically assumes discrete transfer to a known individual, not mass-market software signup. The underlying logic (controlled access, available information, failure to restrict) tracks the same point that animates the account-enforcement allegations in the Tumbler Ridge complaints filed last month.
Complaint PDF: https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/show_temp4.pdf
Additional analysis: https://www.reddit.com/r/lawsuitinformer/comments/1taz2q9/the_new_openai_lawsuit_pleads_a_negligent/