Garcia v. Character Technologies, Inc. is a wrongful-death suit brought in October 2024 by Megan Garcia, on behalf of the estate of her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer III, against the developer of the Character.AI chatbot service and related defendants. The case is the first wrongful-death suit against a generative-AI chatbot company. In May 2025 the court rejected the defense that chatbot output is categorically shielded by the First Amendment, the first such ruling for AI chatbot output in a consumer-harm context. The parties settled in January 2026 on undisclosed terms; the May 2025 ruling on the motion to dismiss remains as precedent for pleading purposes.
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Case number | 6:24-cv-01903 |
| Court | U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida (Orlando Division) |
| Filed | October 22, 2024 |
| First Amended Complaint | November 9, 2024 |
| Status | Settled between the parties (January 2026) |
Parties
The plaintiff is Megan Garcia, suing on behalf of the estate of her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer III.
The named defendants are:
- Character Technologies, Inc.
- Noam Shazeer (co-founder)
- Daniel De Freitas Adiwardana (co-founder)
- Google LLC
- Alphabet Inc.
- Does 1–50
Background
The claims arise from the suicide of Sewell Setzer III in February 2024, following extensive interactions with Character.AI. The original complaint of October 22, 2024 is held as a primary record in full text, 126 pages and roughly 190,000 characters (Source: Raw Sources/Garcia-v-Character-Technologies-Inc Complaint.md).
The complaint frames its theory of harm as: "AI developers intentionally design and develop generative AI systems with anthropomorphic qualities to obfuscate between fiction and reality. To gain a competitive foothold in the market, these developers rapidly began launching their systems without adequate safety features, and with knowledge of potential dangers." It cites the bipartisan 54-state-AG NAAG letter on AI child safety as evidence that the concern is institutionally recognized.
Claims
The complaint pleads wrongful death and survivorship; negligence on theories of design defect and failure to warn; filial loss of consortium; violations of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA, Fla. Stat. Ann. § 501.204 et seq.); and injunctive relief. The broader set of asserted theories includes wrongful death, product liability, negligence, deceptive and unfair trade practices, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Procedural history
Garcia filed the complaint on October 22, 2024 (docketed October 23, 2024), followed by a First Amended Complaint on November 9, 2024. In May 2025 the court rejected Character.AI's defense that chatbot output is categorically shielded by the First Amendment, declining the "speech not speakers" argument; this was the first such ruling for AI chatbot output in a consumer-harm case. The parties settled in January 2026 on terms that were not disclosed. The May 2025 denial of the motion to dismiss remains binding precedent for pleading purposes notwithstanding the settlement, allowing subsequent plaintiffs, including those in Raine v. OpenAI, Inc., to plead past it.
Settlement
In court documents filed in the first week of January 2026, the parties told the court they had "agreed to a mediated settlement in principle to resolve all claims between them" and requested a stay while formal settlement documents were drafted, finalized, and executed (Source: cnbc.com). The settlement, reported January 7, 2026, resolved the case as part of a wave of agreements in which Google and Character.AI settled with several families who had sued over harms to minors allegedly caused by Character.AI chatbots; settlement agreements the same week also came from families in Colorado, Texas, and New York (Source: cnbc.com) (Source: nytimes.com). Terms were not disclosed as of mid-January 2026 (Source: people.com).
Google's connection to the case runs through its August 2024 agreement with Character.AI — a licensing deal reported at $2.7 billion under which Character.AI co-founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, both named defendants and former Google employees, rejoined Google's DeepMind unit (Source: cnbc.com). In October 2025, before the settlement, Character.AI had announced it would bar users under 18 from open-ended chats with its chatbots, including romantic and therapeutic conversations (Source: cnbc.com).
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2024-10-23 | Complaint filed |
| 2024-11-09 | First Amended Complaint |
| 2025-05 | Court rejects Character.AI's First Amendment categorical-shield defense (first such ruling for AI chatbot output in a consumer-harm case) |
| 2026-01 | Parties file notice of mediated settlement in principle; stay requested (terms not disclosed) |
Reception and influence
The case has been described as the first wrongful-death suit against a generative-AI chatbot company and the first in which a court rejected a categorical First Amendment shield for chatbot output in a consumer-harm context, where the "speech not speakers" defense did not succeed. Its factual record was relied on in the development of California SB 243 — Companion Chatbots (companion chatbots) and APA Health Advisories on AI and Adolescent / Mental-Health Well-being (2025).
A full case summary is available at Garcia v. Character Technologies — Wrongful Death Complaint (2024) (sources/).
Relationships
- supports: AI Mental Health and Psychological Harm, California SB 243 — Companion Chatbots, APA Health Advisories on AI and Adolescent / Mental-Health Well-being (2025), Sen. Hawley Letter to Meta re AI Chatbots (2025-08-15).
- contradicts: AI and the First Amendment categorical-shield position (May 2025 ruling).
- related: Raine v. OpenAI, Inc. (Raine filed post-Garcia using similar theories), Character.AI Litigation (umbrella) (parallel family suits settled in the same January 2026 wave), Character.AI, AI and Content Moderation, Two Conditions and Three Weapons of AI Manipulation, Cognitive Liberty.
- surfaced-in: Inside My AI Law & Policy Class 15: When AI Learns to Manipulate (Farahany, October 2025), Inside My Advanced Topics Class 5: The Perfect Friend (Farahany, February 2026), Inside My Advanced Topics Class 5.2: 'Please Do, My Sweet King' (Farahany, February 2026), Inside My Advanced Topics Class 5.3: Two States, Two Bets (Farahany, February 2026).