Lawyer Sanctioned Over AI-Hallucinated Case Cites, Quotations

A Texas attorney faces sanctions for using case cites that refer to nonexistent cases and quotations also made up by generative AI.

Local court rules “explicitly caution attorneys that generative artificial intelligence tools may produce factual and legal inaccuracies” and obligate them to verify the information they submit to court, said Judge Marcia A. Crone of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in a Monday opinion.

Crone ordered Beaumont, Texas, lawyer Brandon Monk to pay a $2,000 penalty to the registry of the court and required that he complete a continuing legal education course on the topic of generative AI.

Monk submitted a brief that cited two cases “that do not exist,” as well as multiple quotations that cannot be located within the cited authority in an Oct. 2 summary judgment response in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed against Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., according to Crone.

During a Nov. 21 show cause hearing, Monk said he used a generative artificial intelligence tool to produce the response and failed to verify the content, but he said he attempted to check the response’s content by using a Lexis AI feature that “failed to flag the issues,” Crone said.

When filing documents in federal court, attorneys must meet the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure standard that requires attorneys to certify that “the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law,” or by a nonfrivolous argument for modifying existing law, Crone said.

“At the very least,” Rule 11 of the FRCP requires that “attorneys read, and thereby confirm the existence and validity of, the legal authorities on which they rely,” Crone wrote, quoting the Second Circuit Jan. 30 per curiam opinion in Park v. Kim.

If any of Rule 11’s obligations are unsatisfied, the court has discretion to impose an appropriate sanction, Crone wrote.

Monk compounded his errors after Goodyear identified the nonexistent legal authorities contained in the response, but he still “took no action to verify his research,” Crone said.

The sanctions against Monk come in the wake of the more than 200 state and federal court orders and rule changes issued since May 30, 2023, to address potential misuse of generative AI in the courts.

The American Bar Association in July warned lawyers to be careful not to run afoul of ethics rules when using generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Gemini from Alphabet Inc.'s Google.

Monk didn’t immediately respond to questions for comment.

The Monk Law Firm represents Gauthier. Littler Mendelson PC represents Goodyear.

The case is Gauthier v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 2024 BL 431433, E.D. Tex., No. 1:23-cv-281, opinion 11/25/24