Anthropic will have to defend itself against a consumer lawsuit over how it sells its Claude Max subscriptions, according to the plaintiffs’ own lawyers, who say a US federal court in Northern California has refused to throw the case out. It is called Kahn v. Anthropic.
The dispute is about two phrases used for the Max plans: “5x more usage than Pro” and “20x more usage than Pro”. Vaca Daffan, the plaintiffs’ firm, quotes the court as saying that with monthly billing a reasonable customer could take these to mean five or twenty times Pro’s usage every month, and the plaintiffs say that is not what subscribers get.
The firm names two more points it says went its way. The court did not accept that the “economic loss rule” blocks a claim of negligent misrepresentation, which it treated as a type of fraud claim. And it was not persuaded by Anthropic’s argument that its website said usage was counted per session: that wording did not appear where customers bought a plan and was not part of the contract.
A ruling like this settles only that the case goes on. The firm describes the core claims as moving forward. Everything here comes from that firm; Anthropic has not commented, and the court’s order has not been read in full for this report.
Conn Law and the Clarkson Firm are co-counsel with Vaca Daffan. The next stage is the arguing of the claims themselves, which will decide whether subscribers who paid for the Max tiers were misled about what the plans give them.
