A federal judge in Mississippi sanctioned four attorneys Tuesday after discovering that lawyers on both sides of a lawsuit filed court briefs containing citations to legal cases that did not exist.
U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock issued the order June 8 in a contract dispute between Louisiana attorney Tom Withers III and the City of Aberdeen, Mississippi. The judge found that attorneys representing both parties submitted legal filings containing what the court described as “hallucinatory citations” generated with artificial intelligence (AI).
The problem came to light when the court attempted to locate several cases cited in briefs filed by both sides and could not find them. The judge subsequently ordered all four attorneys involved in the case to explain why they should not be sanctioned….