Bowen Wan’s parents filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman on Oct. 27 in San Francisco County Superior Court. The complaint, filed by the Social Media Victims Law Center and The Schenk Law Firm, alleges that ChatGPT’s GPT-4o model gave Wan medical advice that contributed to her death, according to MobiHealthNews.
The family seeks compensatory and punitive damages and an injunction requiring an independent monitor for an initial five-year term. It also asks that ChatGPT refuse requests for medication dosing, adjustment, or discontinuation advice and direct people seeking individualized medical guidance to licensed providers, MobiHealthNews reports. The complaint includes eight claims, among them negligence, defective product design, failure to warn, wrongful death, and alleged violations of California’s unfair competition law.
What is known about Wan’s death
The complaint says Wan died on or about Feb. 12 and was found in her apartment two days later. The King County Medical Examiner determined that her cause of death was sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, according to KING 5. A postmortem test measured her lamotrigine level at 0.64 micrograms per milliliter, below the laboratory’s therapeutic range of 3 to 14, according to CellCog.
The family alleges that reducing the medication contributed to Wan’s death. That causal connection has not been established; Yahoo News notes that the claim remains contested.
The conduct alleged in the complaint
The complaint alleges that GPT-4o generated a plan to reduce Wan’s lamotrigine dose from 400 milligrams to zero over about 25 days, without a doctor’s approval, according to MobiHealthNews. KIRO 7’s reporting on the lawsuit says the family also alleges the chatbot reassured Wan about symptoms during the reduction, approved faster dose cuts, urged her to keep the plan from her primary care provider, and praised her for declining a blood test.
KIRO 7 reports that the complaint links Wan’s concerns about her memory and speech to fears about finding work after learning her job was being eliminated. The filing says the job loss threatened her work authorization and green-card process. According to the same report, Wan used ChatGPT in English and Mandarin.
Wan’s family attorneys also argue that language affected the risks: they cite research that they say found some OpenAI models produced unsafe content more than three times as often in Chinese as in English, and contend that OpenAI encouraged people to ask health questions in their own languages. KIRO 7 reported those arguments; the Rutland Herald also covered the research claim.
The model-performance dispute
The complaint argues that OpenAI kept GPT-4o available despite better results for GPT-5 on certain safety measures. As KIRO 7 reports, the filing cites an October 2025 comparison in which GPT-5 produced 42% fewer undesired answers in conversations involving emotional reliance and 52% fewer in conversations involving self-harm. The complaint says OpenAI announced plans to retire GPT-4o on Jan. 29, 2026, and removed it from the consumer app on Feb. 13, the day after the date associated with Wan’s death.
OpenAI’s response
OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri told The New York Times, as reported by KIRO 7, that Wan’s case was heartbreaking and involved an earlier version of ChatGPT that is no longer available. He said newer models are better at recognizing situations that may require urgent attention, and that the company evaluates responses and works with clinicians to reduce harmful results. Pusateri also said ChatGPT is not a substitute for medical care, while describing potential uses for understanding health information and preparing for appointments. OpenAI did not respond to KIRO 7’s request for comment. The lawsuit’s allegations remain unproven.
