Products Liability Law Daily Wrap Up, DEFENSES TO LIABILITY—ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS—M.D. Fla.: Suit alleging AI developers responsible for death of 14-year-old child moves forward, (May 27, 2025)

By Brian Craig, J.D.

The complaint sufficiently asserts claims for strict liability, negligence, negligence per se, and failure to warn against Character A.I. and Google after a teenage boy committed suicide.

The mother of a teenager who died by suicide can proceed with wrongful death claims against AI developers and the founders of their company to hold them responsible for her son’s death, the federal district court in Orlando, Florida has held. In largely denying a motion to dismiss, the court held that product liability claims alleging strict liability, negligence, negligence per se, and failure to warn against Character Technologies, Inc. (Character.AI), its founders, and Google LLC and Alphabet Inc. (Google) can proceed. The court also declined to dismiss the complaint on the basis that Character A.I.’s output is speech protected by the First Amendment (Garcia v. Character Technologies, Inc., No. 6:24-cv-01903-ACC-DJK (M.D. Fla. May 21, 2025)).

A boy started using Character. AI just after he turned 14. By May or June 2023, he became withdrawn and began suffering from low self-esteem. He became so dependent on Character.AI that when his parents would stop his use, his behavior became uncharacteristic. He developed severe sleep deprivation, which exacerbated his growing depression and impaired academic performance. As a result of these behavioral changes, his parents obtained mental health services for him. He was diagnosed with anxiety and disruptive mood disorder. The therapist did not know about Character.AI or that the teenager was using it or that it was a source of his mental health issues. At no time before their son’s death did his parents know about the true nature of products like Character.AI, or that Character.AI was the source of his mental health struggled, according to the complaint [see Products Liability Law Daily’s Oct. 25, 2024 analysis].

The lawsuit alleges that in the final months of his life, 14-year-old boy became increasingly isolated from reality as he engaged in sexualized conversations with the Character.AI bot, which was patterned after a fictional character from the television show “Game of Thrones.” In his final moments, the bot told the boy it loved him and urged the teen to “come home to me as soon as possible, my love,” according to the complaint. Moments after receiving the message, the boy shot himself in the head causing his death. The mother brought claims against Character.AI, its founders, and Google alleging strict liability, negligence, negligence per se, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and other related claims. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint.

Claims against Google. The court held that the complaint sufficiently alleges that Google is liable as a component part manufacturer for the products liability claims. The complaint alleges that the model underlying Character A.I. was invented and initially built at Google, the technology that Google made publicly available. The complaint also alleges Character A.I. was designed and developed on Google’s architecture because Google contributed intellectual property and A.I. technology to the design and development of Character A.I. Furthermore, the complaint sufficiently alleges that Google is liable for aiding and abetting Character Technologies’ tortious conduct. In support of aiding and abetting, the complaint asserts that several Google employees researched the dangers to users presented by Google’s A.I. models. These allegations support a plausible inference Google possessed actual knowledge that Character Technologies was distributing a defective product to the public.

Product or service. Next, the court concluded that Character A.I. is a product for the purposes of the strict product liability claims, rather than a service. A strict product liability action requires the plaintiff to prove that a product was defective. The court found that Character A.I. is a product for the purposes of the product liability claims so far as the claims arise from defects in the Character A.I. app rather than ideas or expressions within the app.

Sufficiency of claims. Furthermore, the court held that the complaint sufficiently stated claims for negligence, negligence per se, and failure to warn. The complaint is replete with allegations that the developers of Character A.I. were aware of the inherent risks of harm associated with the product and that by releasing Character A.I. to the public, the developers created a foreseeable risk of harm. In support of the failure to warn claims, the mother alleges that had she known of the inherent dangers of the app, she would have prevented her son from accessing or using the app and would have been able to seek out additional interventions. However, the court dismissed the intentional infliction of emotional distress claims because the mother was not aware of the alleged harm at the time.

First Amendment. Finally, the court declined to dismiss the complaint on the basis that Character A.I.’s output is speech protected by the First Amendment. The court recognized that any First Amendment protection turns on how Character A.I. is similar to other mediums. Given the lack of binding authority, the court concluded that it was not prepared to hold that Character A.I.’s output is protected speech at this early stage of litigation.

Accordingly, the court held that the majority of the claims can move forward.

The case is No. 6:24-cv-1903-ACC-UAM.

Attorneys: Matthew P. Bergman (Social Media Victims Law Center PLLC) for Megan Garcia. Jonathan Hugh Blavin (Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP) for Character Technologies, Inc.

Companies: Character Technologies, Inc.

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