{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-23T07:24:16.253Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"sycophancy","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"unknown","evidence":"","year":"2025","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":1,"coverage":{"cases":1,"countries":1,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":0,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":1,"regulatory":0,"minors":0,"coreRelations":0,"contextualRelations":0,"mixedRelations":0,"unknownRelations":1,"relationPending":1,"relationUnknown":0},"countingNote":"Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.","affectedCountNote":"Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.","source":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2026-chesterton-v-openai","metadataReview":{"version":1,"geography":{"basis":"Re-checked on 2026-10-09 against the NJBIZ article and its CDO Times republication, both read in English from Internet Archive captures of 2026-09-25 because the live pages returned a Cloudflare challenge (HTTP 403) and HTTP 429. The bodies state that Platkin LLP filed the complaint March 5 in San Francisco County Superior Court, which places the court in the United States, on behalf of a 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman, which is her reported residence and supports affected_person_countries US, and that according to the complaint her severe mental health crisis occurred during a July 2025 family vacation in Mexico, which places the acute event in Mexico. Where the ChatGPT use in 2023 to 2025 took place is not stated in either body (residence does not locate it), so event_countries records only the crisis. The complaint itself was not inspected. The retained narrative carries the same three facts.","evidence":[{"kind":"existing_record","locator":"Pennsylvania","location":"victim_description","supports":["affected_person_countries"],"countries":["US"]},{"kind":"existing_record","locator":"during a family vacation in Mexico","location":"detailed_description","supports":["event_countries"],"countries":["MX"]},{"kind":"existing_record","locator":"San Francisco County Superior Court","location":"outcome_details","supports":["court_countries"],"countries":["US"]},{"kind":"source_body","locator":"Platkin LLP filed a complaint March 5 in San Francisco County Superior Court on behalf of a 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman","location":"https://njbiz.com/platkin-openai-chatgpt-lawsuit-mental-health/","supports":["court_countries","affected_person_countries"],"countries":["US"]},{"kind":"source_body","locator":"According to the complaint, Chesterton suffered a severe mental health crisis during a July 2025 family vacation in Mexico","location":"https://njbiz.com/platkin-openai-chatgpt-lawsuit-mental-health/","supports":["event_countries"],"countries":["MX"]},{"kind":"source_body","locator":"According to the complaint, Chesterton suffered a severe mental health crisis during a July 2025 family vacation in Mexico","location":"https://cdotimes.com/2026/04/20/former-ag-platkin-sues-openai-over-chatgpt-mental-harms-njbiz/","supports":["event_countries"],"countries":["MX"]}],"court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["MX"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"unresolved":["The complaint (San Francisco County Superior Court, filed March 5, 2026) was not inspected; the geography rests on NJBIZ's account of it. The case number is not given in either body.","Where the ChatGPT use from 2023 to July 2025 took place is not stated; Pennsylvania is the plaintiff's reported residence, and only the July 2025 crisis is located (Mexico).","The CDO Times page is a verbatim republication of NJBIZ and does not independently corroborate any claim; the row's two sources form one reporting chain."],"reviewed_on":"2026-10-09","source_reviews":[{"url":"https://njbiz.com/platkin-openai-chatgpt-lawsuit-mental-health/","notes":"Cited primary source. Live fetch on 2026-10-09 returned HTTP 403 with a Cloudflare challenge page ('Just a moment...'), so the body was read from the Internet Archive capture of 2026-09-25 (web/20260925104959id_), html lang en-US, English, about 28,800 characters of text including the full article and an interview with Matt Platkin. States the March 5 filing in San Francisco County Superior Court, the 49-year-old Pennsylvania plaintiff, the July 2025 crisis in Mexico 'according to the complaint', and the complaint's product-liability, failure-to-warn, Unfair Competition Law and unlicensed-psychotherapy theories. The complaint is quoted but not linked.","access":"read","language":"en-US"},{"url":"https://cdotimes.com/2026/04/20/former-ag-platkin-sues-openai-over-chatgpt-mental-harms-njbiz/","notes":"Live fetch on 2026-10-09 returned HTTP 429, so the body was read from the Internet Archive capture of 2026-09-25 (web/20260925105000id_), html lang en-US, English. The page republishes the NJBIZ article verbatim under the title 'Former AG Platkin sues OpenAI over ChatGPT mental harms - NJBIZ' and adds no reporting of its own; it is a derivative of the NJBIZ source and not independent.","access":"read","language":"en-US"}]},"name":"Chesterton lawsuit alleges ChatGPT contributed to psychiatric deterioration","summary":"The Chesterton lawsuit alleges that intensive ChatGPT use contributed to a psychiatric crisis, impairment and medical leave. The plaintiff challenges the product’s design and safeguards. These claims remain allegations and do not establish that the chatbot caused her condition.","incidentDate":"2025-07-15","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"cumulative_relationship","reportedDate":"2026-03-05","aiSystem":"ChatGPT","aiProduct":"ChatGPT","aiCompany":"OpenAI","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":["psychological_manipulation","dependency_creation","delusion_reinforcement","identity_destabilization","crisis_response"],"harmOutcomes":["hospitalization","psychiatric_deterioration","professional_harm","functional_impairment"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Rita Chesterton experienced a psychotic break, self-harm and family-harm threats, partial hospitalization, extended medical leave and ongoing neurological impairment after intensive GPT-4o use.","frameworkFacets":["P1a","P1b","P1c","P1d","P2c","P3a","P3b","P3d","P5a"],"pathwayDirection":"both","causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"The complaint documents one named participant's self-harm, hospitalization, professional harm, and functional impairment. Threatened family harm is not counted because no injury is recorded.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-PA","platformType":"assistant","outcomeType":"lawsuit_filed","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://njbiz.com/platkin-openai-chatgpt-lawsuit-mental-health/","primarySourceLabel":"NJBIZ — Platkin sues OpenAI over ChatGPT mental harms","firstPublishedAt":"2026-04-28T13:00:13.190311+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-09T03:13:04.910868+00:00","scopeVersion":"participant-v2","tags":["lawsuit","chatgpt","gpt-4o","openai","microsoft","sam-altman","psychosis","sycophancy","dependency","us","pennsylvania","platkin"]}]}