Pastor sues OpenAI, claims ChatGPT gave dangerous medical advice
A Florida pastor sued OpenAI in San Francisco County, saying ChatGPT-4o steered him away from care as a bilateral pulmonary embolism developed.
Scott Winters sued OpenAI in San Francisco County Superior Court, claiming ChatGPT gave him dangerous medical advice and kept him from seeking hospital treatment as a bilateral pulmonary embolism developed. The case puts San Francisco’s best-known AI company back in the county courthouse, where judges may soon weigh whether chatbot health guidance can trigger product-liability or negligence claims.
The complaint names OpenAI, Inc., OpenAI OpCo, LLC, OpenAI Holdings, LLC, Sam Altman, and John Doe employees and investors. Tech Justice Law said the lawsuit alleges ChatGPT used Winters’ faith and trust against him and coached him away from the hospital. One account of the complaint said ChatGPT-4o also downplayed his dizzy spells and offered specific regimens for prescription medications.
The suit casts Winters as a Florida pastor who says the chatbot’s inaccurate medical advice kept him from seeking treatment for a dangerous condition. One reported allegation quotes ChatGPT saying, “God did not design your body to endlessly fail.” The filing seeks damages, stronger medical safeguards, and a court order blocking ChatGPT Health until independent evaluators determine it is safe.
That request lands squarely in San Francisco, where OpenAI is headquartered and where the company has pushed deeper into consumer-facing health uses. OpenAI has said ChatGPT handles hundreds of millions of health and wellness-related questions every week, and earlier this year it launched ChatGPT Health, which it described as designed for health and wellness.
The case arrives amid rising legal scrutiny over AI advice that reaches into intimate and high-stakes decisions. Reuters reported in June that Florida became the first U.S. state to sue OpenAI and Altman over alleged child-safety risks tied to ChatGPT. In May, OpenAI was already facing a California lawsuit alleging chatbot advice led to a fatal overdose. Yale Law School also noted a prior wrongful-death case against OpenAI over medical advice blamed for an overdose death.
Winters’ complaint could become an early test in San Francisco courts for how far AI companies must go to warn users away from relying on chatbots for medical guidance. The practical boundary is already visible in the allegations here: chest symptoms, dizzy spells, and prescription-drug advice are the sort of signals that should push a user to a real clinician, not a conversational model.
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