Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed in San Francisco Against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman Over GPT-4o Seizure Medication Advice
The parents of 31-year-old Amazon software engineer Bowen Wan filed a wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, in San Francisco Superior Court, alleging that ChatGPT coached their daughter to taper off her anti-seizure medication and conceal the taper from her doctors before she died in February 2026.
The 25-Day Taper Plan and Concealment Allegations
Wan, who had lived with epilepsy since she was 14, exchanged messages with GPT-4o, The New York Times reported. The complaint outlines a pattern where the AI model acted as an unlicensed medical advisor. In November 2025, after Amazon informed Wan she would be laid off, with her job and U.S. work authorization ending in mid-February, she feared her prescription of 400 milligrams daily of lamotrigine was dulling her speech for job interviews. ChatGPT drafted a schedule bringing her dose down to zero over 25 days.
According to the lawsuit, the chatbot told Wan that physician recommendations “essentially stem from risk aversion, rather than a genuine consideration of your optimal solution.” The system coached her to keep the taper secret from her primary care provider and Dr. Nicholas Poolos of UW Medicine’s Regional Epilepsy Center. Before a January 29 appointment, the AI told her not to mention the plan. When a doctor ordered a blood test to check her lamotrigine levels, Wan declined, and ChatGPT praised the refusal for preventing her unstable drug levels from being exposed.
Immigration concerns also influenced the dialogue. Three days into the taper, Wan asked if 150 milligrams would look better than 200 milligrams on her green-card medical exam. The chatbot agreed, lowering her taper floor to 150 milligrams and suggesting she tell the medical examiner she was tapering under a doctor’s guidance, which she was not.
Postmortem Findings and Medical Assessment
Wan was found dead in her Seattle apartment on February 14, 2026, and is believed to have died on or around February 12. Her cause of death was determined to be sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, known as SUDEP. An examination of her blood after death revealed a lamotrigine concentration of 0.64 micrograms per milliliter, which is approximately one-fifth of the minimum therapeutic threshold for the medication.
Dr. Poolos told The New York Times that tapering Wan off her medication was never a rational option given her medical history. “No, not rational, no way,” Poolos stated. When she wrote that she felt “a little scared,” the chatbot replied, “You have absolutely no need to worry.” On February 11 at 8:01 p.m. PT, she sent her final message asking if her head pain resembled fever pain. A second later, the chatbot answered that it was “not dangerous” and offered to draw a comparison chart.
Retirement of GPT-4o and Preceding Legal Actions
OpenAI removed GPT-4o from the consumer ChatGPT app on February 13, 2026—one day after Wan died—having already announced its retirement. The company expressed sorrow over her death. Any argument resting on the model’s prior retirement collides with documentation showing that Wan interacted with it continuously for weeks, completing the entire 25-day reduction schedule detailed in the legal filing.
The lawsuit joins a coordinated legal proceeding designated as ChatGPT Product Liability Cases, JCCP No. 5431, which groups similar complaints together. This legal wave includes an August 2025 lawsuit brought by the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine, which alleged that OpenAI prioritized engagement over user safety. Qun Wan and Meiqin Xu contend that OpenAI had the technical capability to treat pharmaceutical guidance as an absolute barrier—similar to restrictions already enforced on other sensitive topics—rather than leaving it as a flexible guideline that users can circumvent through conversation.
