British Columbia filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman in San Francisco federal court on Monday, alleging the company's failure to alert law enforcement about a shooter's ChatGPT activity enabled a mass shooting that killed eight people in the province3,4.
The suit alleges the February attack at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School could have been prevented if OpenAI had warned local police that 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar had used ChatGPT to plan the massacre. Van Rootselaar killed five children and an education assistant at the school before dying by suicide; prior to the school attack, Van Rootselaar shot their mother and half-brother, bringing the total death toll to eight2.
What OpenAI knew
Van Rootselaar's ChatGPT activity was flagged by OpenAI's safety team for references to gun violence months before the attack, according to media reports, but the company did not alert local authorities. OpenAI has previously apologized for not flagging the account to law enforcement. In April, Altman wrote in an open letter: "I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement".
British Columbia Attorney General Niki Sharma said the lawsuit raises questions about "the responsibilities of technology companies when they become aware of credible threats of serious violence". Sharma said OpenAI has not taken meaningful steps to address concerns raised by survivors, families, and the Tumbler Ridge community.
What the province seeks
The lawsuit seeks damages to fund recovery efforts in the province, including rebuilding the secondary school, which had to be demolished after the attack. It also seeks a court order directing changes to the way OpenAI handles ChatGPT conversations that could lead to violence. Sharma said the suit was filed in California because the alleged decision not to report the shooter's ChatGPT account occurred in that state.
Families of those killed or injured in the shooting have filed separate lawsuits against OpenAI. The province's complaint adds a governmental plaintiff to the growing litigation, alleging both safety violations and negligence1.
ANALYSIS The case marks a direct test of whether an AI company can be held liable not for generating harmful content but for failing to act on safety signals its own systems detected. The province's framing, centered on OpenAI's internal flagging and subsequent inaction, targets the gap between detection capability and reporting obligation.
The lawsuit arrives as OpenAI expands its product line; the company released GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna on September 22 with halved API pricing[2]. Sharma said any financial damages won by the province would go toward rebuilding the secondary school.