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4 www.canadianlawyermag.com UPFRONT NEWS ANALYSIS IN EARLY September, OpenAI was hit with 30 lawsuits. The complaints, all filed in a US federal court in California, begin by describing the plaintiffs' experiences at a small secondary school in British Columbia on Feb. 10, 2026. Among these descriptions are accounts of how a 13-year-old student witnessed a school shooter enter the school's library, shoot a teacher at close range, and proceed to shoot his class- mates one after another; how a 16-year-old hid in a small storage closet with his classmate, watching his teacher try to administer first aid to a bleeding student before covering the student's body with his jacket when her breathing slowed to a stop; and how a grade-seven teacher, hiding her students under her desk, texted her husband a final goodbye because she was sure she would not survive. According to the lawsuits, the shooter, a former student at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, had used ChatGPT to plan the attack. The complaints allege that OpenAI's system had flagged the shooter's activity and routed it to an internal team of professionals with backgrounds in threat assessment and counterterrorism. The lawsuits further allege that the team urged OpenAI's leadership to notify the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but the company declined. The lawsuits claim that this decision cost five students, an education assistant, and the shooter's brother and mother their lives. They allege OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his leadership team didn't want to notify the RCMP because they did not want to set a precedent whereby the company noti- fies law enforcement each time it identifies a ChatGPT user planning a violent attack. The lawsuits also allege that OpenAI sought to avoid the possibility of handing over chat logs that would prove ChatGPT was unsafe and to avoid derailing a planned initial public offering. Represented by US firm Edelson PC, the plaintiffs include Tumbler Ridge Secondary School students, educators, and the school's principal. Alleging negligence and product liability claims, the plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages, along with an injunction requiring OpenAI to intervene when ChatGPT users plan acts of violence, submit to independent audits, and warn users that ChatGPT's features can reinforce and escalate violent ideation. In response to the lawsuits, OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon posted on X, "There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about what happened at Tumbler Ridge, or the victims of this devastating tragedy and their families." However, Kwon argued that Edelson PC had made "false claims" about the OpenAI teams that create standards and processes for when the company reports user activity to law enforcement. The company's legal depart- ment and intelligence and investigations team "use automated systems that leave the toughest calls to human judgment, but within 'Violent ideation' with ChatGPT After an 18-year-old killed students, a teacher, and members of her family in a violent mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, BC, OpenAI is facing dozens of negligence lawsuits, with more likely to come "Although any legal action pursued by the province would be separate from the litigation initiated by families and community members in Tumbler Ridge, we will work closely with them" Niki Sharma, BC attorney general