Lawsuits Test Whether Airbnb Is Liable When Guests Die From Carbon Monoxide — Here’s What Families Are Arguing

What’s happening: A series of lawsuits is now working through the courts challenging whether Airbnb can be held responsible when guests are killed or seriously injured by carbon monoxide at properties listed on its platform. The cases were analyzed in a May 2025 legal column by Reuters journalist Alison Frankel, who examined the arguments families are making and the defenses Airbnb has raised. The outcome of these cases could reshape what responsibilities short-term rental platforms have for the physical safety of the properties they list.

What Is Carbon Monoxide and Why Is It Dangerous?

Carbon monoxide, or CO, is a gas that forms when fuels like natural gas, propane, wood, or charcoal do not burn completely. It can build up quickly inside enclosed spaces — homes, cabins, vacation rentals, apartments. The problem is that CO has no smell, no color, and no taste. There is nothing about the air in a CO-filled room that feels different, until symptoms begin.

Early symptoms — headache, dizziness, nausea, confusion — can easily be mistaken for the flu, food poisoning, or exhaustion. People who are asleep when CO levels rise may never wake up. In higher concentrations, CO causes loss of consciousness and can be fatal within minutes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 400 Americans die each year from non-fire-related CO poisoning, with thousands more hospitalized. A working carbon monoxide detector is the only reliable way to know the gas is present before it is too late.

What the Lawsuits Against Airbnb Claim

The lawsuits follow a recognizable pattern. A family books what looks like a safe and attractive vacation property through Airbnb. They check in. At some point, carbon monoxide — produced by a gas furnace, water heater, generator, or other appliance at the property — begins to fill the space. There is no detector to sound an alarm. Someone is seriously injured or killed.

The families who have filed these cases argue that Airbnb bears responsibility because Airbnb controls what hosts are required to do to list a property on the platform. Through its Terms of Service, host requirements, and listing policies, Airbnb can and does set rules that hosts must follow. The argument is that Airbnb had both the knowledge that CO poisoning was a known risk at short-term rental properties, and the practical ability to require every host to install a working CO detector as a condition of listing — and chose not to meaningfully enforce that requirement.

The lawsuits allege that Airbnb prioritized growing its platform over protecting the people who booked stays through it. When guests used Airbnb to find a place to stay, they reasonably trusted that the platform had taken steps to ensure the property met basic safety standards.

What Airbnb Says

Airbnb has pointed to its safety policies, which discuss carbon monoxide detectors and, in recent years, have been updated to describe CO detectors as a requirement for hosts in many jurisdictions. The company has said it provides resources and guidance to help hosts understand their obligations.

On the legal side, Airbnb’s position in these cases has generally been that it is a platform — a marketplace that connects property owners with guests — and that the physical condition of any individual property is the responsibility of the host who owns and manages it, not of Airbnb. The company has argued that hosts are independent operators, not Airbnb employees or agents.

Airbnb has also raised arguments related to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law that has long shielded online platforms from liability for content posted by their users. Airbnb argues this protection extends to claims arising from its role as a platform.

What Courts Are Being Asked to Decide

The central legal question is whether a company like Airbnb — which profits from bookings, controls the rules hosts must follow, and markets itself on the basis of safety and trust — can be held responsible for the physical conditions at the properties it lists.

Courts are being asked to weigh:

• Whether Airbnb’s control over host requirements creates a legal duty to protect guests from known hazards like CO poisoning
• Whether Airbnb had enough knowledge of the risk that it was obligated to act
• Whether Section 230 shields Airbnb from these kinds of claims — or whether Section 230 was never intended to cover physical safety failures at real-world properties
• Whether Airbnb’s stated safety policies, which families say are not enforced, create additional responsibility

Legal scholars have noted that Section 230, written in 1996, was designed to protect platforms from liability for online speech and content. Applying it to wrongful death claims based on physical conditions at a rented property is a significant extension of the law that courts have not uniformly accepted.

Who May Have a Case

You may have a case if any of the following is true:

• You stayed at a property listed on Airbnb and were seriously injured from carbon monoxide poisoning during that stay
• A family member stayed at a property listed on Airbnb and died or was seriously injured from carbon monoxide poisoning
• The property was listed and booked through Airbnb at the time of the incident
• The property had no working carbon monoxide detector, or the detector present was defective or non-functional

You do not need to have filed a police report, pursued a criminal case, or made a formal complaint to any government agency. A civil case is entirely separate from any criminal proceeding.

Deadlines to file a civil case vary by state, and in wrongful death cases, by the date of death and the relationship of the person filing. Waiting can cost you the right to recover. The only reliable way to know whether you still have time is to have your situation reviewed by a lawyer.

What You Should Do If This Happened to You or Your Family

If you or a family member was injured or killed from carbon monoxide at an Airbnb-listed property, there are a few practical steps to keep in mind:

• Preserve records. Keep any documentation you have of the booking — the Airbnb confirmation, emails, messages with the host, photos of the property. This includes any emergency responder reports, hospital records, or death certificates if applicable.
• Do not assume it is too late. Filing deadlines for civil cases vary widely by state and by the type of case. Some states give families two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death case; others allow longer. A lawyer can tell you where you stand.
• Talk to a lawyer before contacting Airbnb. Airbnb may reach out to express condolences or offer compensation. Before accepting anything or signing any document, speak with a lawyer who handles these kinds of cases.
• The case check is free. There is no cost to find out whether you may have a case, and no fee unless your case recovers money.

For the full case background and to start a confidential review, see our Airbnb carbon monoxide case page.