House Democrat circulates draft bill on developer liability for AI agent harms
For the general counsel at a regional bank
Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, proposed a discussion draft on Wednesday that would let private parties sue AI developers for harms their systems cause, CIO Dive reported on Oct. 12.1
Trahan said in a statement: "When someone breaks the law and hurts you, you can take them to court." The CIO Dive article does not link to the draft text, so the details below come from that report and a summary it cites.1
The draft would hold a developer liable if its system injured a third party through conduct that would be negligence, an intentional tort, or a crime if a human did the same act, according to CIO Dive.1
Liability would not apply where the user or a company that modified the system intended the conduct or was negligent, and the draft would otherwise impose liability regardless of the developer's degree of care.1
Courts would presume an AI system had the state of mind a person taking the same actions would have, and developers could not argue that AI is incapable of intent.1
Plaintiffs could seek damages and other relief and would generally have three years from discovering, or reasonably being expected to discover, the injury. The proposal would sunset five years after enactment and would create "a federal floor" without preempting any state law, according to a summary.1
If a version of this draft became law, a bank that deploys or modifies a vendor's AI agent could shift liability back onto itself if it was negligent or intended the conduct, so records of how the system was configured and changed would matter in any dispute. Vendor contracts and indemnities would need to reflect that split.
Darrell West of the Brookings Institution said action on such legislation is more likely in the next Congress; the article names no markup or vote date.1
Our take. The draft makes the developer pay however careful it was, then shifts the loss to any bank that used or modified the agent negligently. Your agent setup records may decide who pays.
Action. Legal and compliance: Inventory AI agents the bank has deployed or modified, and document configuration, supervision and override controls for each.
What our records say
Commerce frames AI mainly as governance: its 2025 annual report says the bank "established an AI pillar within our enterprise data strategy and developed a comprehensive AI roadmap" while modernising its data platform.1 The wealth business is "actively exploring AI-enabled tools" for trust, estate and investment needs.1 That use case is recorded with status Pilot.2
From our records
- Commerce Bancsharesbank · latest At a glance: $35.3 billion of assets (Jul 2026)