Lawyer faces $15,000 fine for using fake AI-generated cases in court filing
Facepalm: Another instance of an attorney using generative AI to file briefs containing non-existent cases has led to a judge recommending a $15,000 fine for his actions. That’s more than three times what two lawyers and their law firm were fined in 2023 for doing the same thing.
When representing HooserVac LLC in a lawsuit over its retirement fund in October 2024, Indiana attorney Rafael Ramirez included case citations in three separate briefs. The court could not locate these cases as they had been fabricated by ChatGPT.
In December, US Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Indiana Mark J. Dinsmore ordered Ramirez to appear in court and show cause as to why he shouldn’t be sanctioned for the errors.
“Transposing numbers in a citation, getting the date wrong, or misspelling a party’s name is an error,” the judge wrote. “Citing to a case that simply does not exist is something else altogether. Mr Ramirez offers no hint of an explanation for how a case citation made up out of whole cloth ended up in his brief. The most obvious explanation is that Mr Ramirez used an AI-generative tool to aid in drafting his brief and failed to check the citations therein before filing it.”
Ramirez admitted that he used generative AI, but insisted he did not realize the cases weren’t real as he was unaware that AI could generate fictitious cases and citations. He also confessed to not complying with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. This states that claims being made must be based on evidence that currently exists, or there is a strong likelihood that evidence will be found to support them through further investigation or discovery. The rule is supposed to encourage attorneys to perform due diligence before filing cases.
Ramirez says he has since taken legal education courses on the use of AI in law, and continues to use AI tools. But the judge said his “failure to comply with that most basic of requirements” makes his conduct “particularly sanctionable.” Dinsmore added (via Bloomberg Law) that as Ramirez failed to provide competent representation and made several false statements to the court, he was being referred to the chief judge for any further disciplinary action.
Dinsmore has recommended that Ramirez be sanctioned $5,000 for each of the three cases he filed containing the fabricated cases.
This isn’t the first case of a lawyer’s reliance on AI proving misplaced. In June 2023, two lawyers and their law firm were fined $5,000 by a district judge in Manhattan for citing fake legal research generated by ChatGPT.
In January, lawyers in Wyoming submitted nine cases to support an argument in a lawsuit against Walmart and Jetson Electric Bikes over a fire allegedly caused by a hoverboard. Eight of the cases had been hallucinated by ChatGPT.
