A San Francisco County Superior Court judge has allowed most of Reddit's lawsuit against Anthropic to proceed. The social media platform accuses Anthropic of illegally scraping user comments to train its Claude chatbot. Judge Harold Kahn, in an order dated September 17 and filed the next day, overruled Anthropic's legal challenge, a demurrer. Three of Reddit's five claims will now advance, following the judge's decision.
The allowed claims against Anthropic include breach of contract, interference with contract, and violation of California's unfair competition law. Two other claims, unjust enrichment and trespass to chattels, were dismissed, but Reddit can refile them by October 16. Reddit filed its complaint in June 2025, asserting Anthropic used bots to access its content without permission, training Claude on user data without consent. Reddit's chief legal officer, Ben Lee, highlighted that AI companies need clear limits on data usage.