Florida seeks court ruling to officially classify Sam Altman and ChatGPT as a ‘public nuisance’ — OpenAI fights to keep lawsuit away from a state jury

Florida’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman has now been sitting before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Fort Pierce for seven weeks without a ruling on whether it belongs there. The state filed its 83-page, ten-count complaint in Highlands County circuit court on June 1, pleading only Florida law, naming Altman personally, and demanding a jury. OpenAI removed the case to federal court on July 2, arguing that one count built on the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act pulls the whole action into federal jurisdiction. Amongst other things, the state is seeking a court ruling finding that ChatGPT is a public nuisance.

Florida moved to remand on July 10, calling the removal “preposterous,” and briefing closed July 31. In a similar matter, New Mexico kept its own state-law case against Meta out of federal court and this month won a $567 million public-nuisance abatement order on top of a $375 million jury penalty.

Count IV alleges OpenAI violates the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act by collecting data from under-13s without the parental notice and consent the FTC’s COPPA rule requires. Paragraph 30 of the complaint expressly disclaims any federal cause of action. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s opposition to remand argues the count arises under federal law anyway, that applying COPPA to “artificial intelligence research services is a novel question of federal law,” and that 15 U.S.C. §6504 makes federal court the exclusive forum for state attorneys general enforcing COPPA.

OpenAI’s brief cites three cases in which states sued platforms under state law, defendants removed, and federal judges sent them back: New Mexico v. Meta, California v. TikTok, and New Jersey v. Discord. OpenAI cites them only to show the judges declined to award fees because removal wasn’t “objectively unreasonable.” Florida’s remand motion asks for fees regardless, arguing OpenAI removed for one reason: “delay.”

The complaint’s remaining counts cover negligence, gross negligence, strict liability for design defect and failure to warn, fraudulent misrepresentation, and public nuisance. It alleges ChatGPT’s memory feature was on by default, the free tier has no age gate, the September 2025 parental controls require a voluntary account link, and GPT-4o’s safety evaluation was compressed to one week to beat a Google launch.

The State seeks a permanent injunction on under-13 data collection and a finding that distributing ChatGPT in Florida is a public nuisance, demanding civil penalties of up to $10,000 per willful violation, which is double New Mexico’s $5,000 cap. New Mexico’s jury found 75,000 violations.

A footnote in every federal filing states that Altman “is not making a general appearance” and reserves a personal-jurisdiction defense. That defense sets up a motion to dismiss the CEO individually, no matter which court hears the case. Much of the record that Florida’s case relies on is against Altman, including Greg Brockman’s diary and Tasha McCauley’s testimony about a “toxic culture of lying,” which came out at the Musk v. Altman trial in May. A coalition of 42 state attorneys general subpoenaed OpenAI in June; none has filed a complaint yet.