A United States judge has ruled that Anthropic must face key claims that it misled customers about the amount of usage available under its Claude Max subscription plans.
Magistrate Judge Alex Tse dismissed several other claims in the proposed class-action lawsuit on Friday, according to Courthouse News. TNW said it had not reviewed the ruling.
The case, Kahn v. Anthropic, was filed in June at the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
The lawsuit centres on Anthropic’s claims that its $100 and $200 Claude Max plans offer five and 20 times more usage, respectively, than its Pro subscription.
However, the plaintiffs allege that the plans provide significantly less usage when calculated over a full week.
The plaintiffs, Karl Kahn and Solomon Smith, estimated that, for one Claude model, the $200 subscription provides six times the weekly usage available under the Pro plan, while the $100 tier offers just 3.5 times the Pro plan’s allowance.
The discrepancy stems from how Anthropic structures its usage limits. While Max subscribers receive five or 20 times more usage within each five-hour session, their weekly usage limits are not increased by the same multiples.
Anthropic argued that customers should understand the additional usage allowances as applying to individual sessions, citing information on its help page.
However, Magistrate Judge Alex Tse was not convinced by the argument, according to Courthouse News.
“Anthropic’s per session disclosure is located two hyperlinks away from the primary sales pages on claude.com,” Tse wrote.
The judge found that because customers pay for the subscriptions monthly, they could reasonably interpret Anthropic’s usage promises as applying to the entire billing month. He allowed the plaintiffs to proceed with claims of negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract.
However, Tse dismissed claims brought under two California laws covering unfair business practices and false advertising. He also dismissed Kahn’s claim under a state consumer protection law but gave him an opportunity to provide additional details. Smith’s claim under the same law was allowed to proceed.
The judge also rejected an allegation that Anthropic acted unfairly by reducing usage limits during active billing periods.
