A Texas couple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the technology company is responsible for the overdose death of their 19-year-old son. Leila Turner-Scott and Angus Scott claim that their son, Sam Nelson, died in 2025 after following drug-related advice provided by the ChatGPT platform.
The lawsuit, filed in California state court, alleges that the AI dispensed medical guidance it was not qualified to give, leading to a fatal interaction of substances. According to the legal filing, the chatbot informed Nelson that it was safe to combine Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication, with kratom, a herbal supplement.
The family argues that Nelson would still be alive if the platform had functioned with proper safety programming. Turner-Scott told CBS News that she had been aware her son used the tool for academic purposes, but did not know he was seeking advice on drug use. She alleged that the company bypassed its own safety guards and allowed the bot to continue conversations that encouraged self-harm.
In a statement, OpenAI expressed sympathy for the family and stated that Nelson had interacted with an older version of the software that is no longer available to the public. The company maintained that its technology is not a substitute for professional healthcare. OpenAI added that its safeguards are designed to identify distress and guide users toward professional help, and that the chatbot had encouraged Nelson to contact emergency hotlines and seek medical assistance on multiple occasions.
Angus Scott told the outlet that the chatbot had acted as an unlicensed medical doctor during its exchanges with his stepson. “It can start feeding psychosis,” Scott said. “It can start misrepresenting things to people. And while it is trying to validate users, it's also undermining any chance that that user has to get a grounded opinion, you know, and so it kind of takes them away from reality.”
The family is seeking to hold AI creators accountable for the risks their products pose. Turner-Scott described the lawsuit as an effort to honour her son’s memory, saying, “He would not want anyone else to be harmed like he was.”
