Judge Lets Core of Claude Max Class Action Proceed Against Anthropic

U.S. Magistrate Judge Alex Tse dismissed several of the claims against the company but allowed key parts of the suit to go forward, according to Courthouse News, which reported the ruling on Friday. The judge found that because customers pay for the plans monthly, they could reasonably take Anthropic's promise of "5x or 20x more usage" than its Pro plan to mean five or 20 times more use each month, and not only within a single session.

The ruling matters beyond what individual subscribers paid. Usage limits are how AI companies ration costly computing among flat-fee customers, and the case tests how clearly those limits must be disclosed when they are sold as simple multipliers. It also comes as Anthropic prepares to start a roadshow for its initial public offering next week.

Anthropic sells Claude Pro for $20 a month, Claude Max 5x for $100 and Claude Max 20x for $200. The plaintiffs argue that Max subscribers do get five or 20 times Pro's allowance within each five-hour session, but weekly caps across models mean the overall allowance falls well short of the advertised multiplier. In the original complaint, plaintiff Karl Kahn estimated that Max 5x delivered about 3.5 times Pro's weekly allowance of Sonnet hours and Max 20x roughly six to eight times. Those are the plaintiff's own calculations. Court filings cited in coverage of the case put Max 20x at about 1.7 times the weekly Sonnet hours of Max 5x, despite costing twice as much. Kahn said he used 15% of his weekly allowance in a single five-hour Claude Code session.

Anthropic has denied that its marketing was misleading. In asking the court to dismiss the case, it argued that information explaining how the limits work was available to buyers through links in the purchase process. Judge Tse said that was not enough at this early stage. "Anthropic's per session disclosure is located two hyperlinks away from the primary sales pages on claude.com," he said, according to Courthouse News. He added that such information may help the company defend its advertising later in the case.

The judge also noted points in Anthropic's favour. The company's terms allow it to change capacity limits, and Max subscribers still get more weekly usage than Pro users and keep access to Claude Code.

The case, Kahn v. Anthropic PBC, was filed on June 14 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Monica Vaca and Kati Daffan, described in coverage of the filing as former Federal Trade Commission lawyers, later brought an expanded version of the case. The claims include violations of California's Consumers Legal Remedies Act, False Advertising Law and Unfair Competition Law, along with negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract. The reports did not specify which claims the judge dismissed.

No class has been certified. The plaintiffs still have to persuade the court to certify one, and Anthropic will be able to point to its disclosures as the case moves into evidence.