Lawyer penalized for AI errors
- A lawyer was sanctioned $145,000 after courts found cited legal authorities were fabricated by AI. (x.com) - The sanction highlights concrete court penalties when AI hallucinations appear in official filings. (x.com) - The case joins broader healthcare and legal liability debates about AI disclaimers and architecture for AI-prescribing tools. ( )
A federal judge in Oregon ordered two lawyers to pay $110,000 after court filings cited fake cases and fabricated quotes that appear to have come from artificial intelligence. (abajournal.com) U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark D. Clarke said the briefs in the winery dispute contained 15 references to nonexistent cases and eight fabricated quotations. He ordered San Diego lawyer Stephen Brigandi to pay about $95,000 and Portland lawyer Tim Murphy to pay $14,000. (abajournal.com) The case involved Joanne Couvrette’s suit against her brothers over control of a family winery in Oregon. Clarke said the false authorities remained even after the errors were flagged and one brief was refiled. (abajournal.com) Courts have been dealing with this problem since at least June 2023, when a federal judge in New York sanctioned lawyers in *Mata v. Avianca* after a filing cited seven nonexistent cases generated by ChatGPT. The Fifth Circuit said in a February 18, 2026 opinion that AI-generated fabrications have become central to court debates over legal drafting. (ca5.uscourts.gov) Appellate courts are now issuing their own sanctions. In a March 13, 2026 opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said lawyers in a Tennessee case filed briefs with more than two dozen fake citations and factual misstatements. (opn.ca6.uscourts.gov) Other courts are changing their rules in writing. The U.S. District Court for Kansas issued Standing Order 26-01 on January 28, 2026, telling lawyers and self-represented parties they must review and verify any filing assisted by AI and warning that violations can lead to monetary sanctions, dismissal, or disciplinary referrals. (ksd.uscourts.gov) Bar groups are framing the issue as an old duty in a new form. The American Bar Association said in March 2025 that lawyers who use AI still have to verify cited law and exercise independent judgment before filing anything with a court. (americanbar.org) The Oregon order puts a six-figure number on that duty. Judges are no longer treating fabricated AI citations as a novelty; they are treating them as sanctionable filings that waste court and party resources. (abajournal.com)
