Why the Pseudonymity in Doe v. OpenAI?

I posted this morning about Doe v. OpenAI, the interesting and important lawsuit that alleges that “[d]riven by a ChatGPT-fueled delusional spiral, her ex-boyfriend [Doe's] stalked and harassed her for months—generating dozens of fake psychological reports about her via ChatGPT and distributing them to her family, friends, and colleagues, which escalated to leaving her voicemails threatening her physical safety.” Regular readers of the blog might ask: What’s with this Jane Doe business here? Why is this case being litigated under a pseudonym, when other tort cases generally aren’t? (Pseudonymity is a rare exception to the general rule that people must sue in their own names.)

I therefore reached out about this to Doe’s lawyers, thinking about whether I should file an opposition to pseudonymity here, as I have in past cases (see, e.g., Roe v. Smith (Cal. App. 2025)). The lawyers promptly responded that  the pseudonymity will likely be temporary:

[W]e will not be seeking to have the case proceed in full with pseudonyms. Here’s the context: our client’s stalker is both dangerous and has lost touch with reality. He believes that there is a broad conspiracy that is plotting against him. He has made death threats to our client and, after being released from custody, made immediate contact with her. She currently has armed security and is deathly afraid.

We have reason to believe he will be arrested shortly. Once he is in custody, we don’t believe there will be a need to continue to proceed with pseudonyms. We do think that if his name is made public in connection with this case, it will reinforce his paranoid delusions and significantly increase the likelihood that he harms our client or others who he has targeted.

Now I’m not sure that this suffices to justify even temporary pseudonymity. I’m skeptical that pseudonymity will indeed affect her safety from the ex-boyfriend: Even if the Complaint has to name her, the Complaint won’t need to use his name (though at some point his name will likely be disclosed, especially if the case goes to trial). And given the news coverage of the Complaint, the ex seems likely to find out that there is a lawsuit being filed, whether or not Doe is named in the caption.

Plaintiffs can sometimes sue under a pseudonym if they can show real evidence of a reasonable fear that they will face retaliation (usually it has to be violent retaliation) if their names are publicized. But the risk of physical retaliation must come from third parties who don’t already know the plaintiff’s identity, rather than from defendants, who generally know the plaintiff’s identity. As Roe v. Smith noted, ”Plaintiffs’ argument that disclosing their names would increase their risk of physical harm or other retaliation from defendants is unsupported. Since defendants already know who plaintiffs are, allowing plaintiffs to proceed pseudonymously would not protect against an alleged danger from defendants learning their identity.”

Here, while Doe may understandably fear continued misconduct from the person identified as “the user” in her Complaint, that person already knows her identity. And there seems to be no reason to think that Doe would be vulnerable to misbehavior from third parties who learn her identity from this case.

Still, I thought there was no need to fight over a few weeks’ delay in depseudonymizing the matter, if that is indeed what ends up happening (especially since such a fight would itself take time). So I expect the filings will soon be revised to disclose plaintiff’s name, much as plaintiffs in the overwhelming majority of American civil cases disclose their names. But if turns out that doesn’t happen, I may indeed file an opposition to continued pseudonymity.

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