Appeals court imposes higher sanction on attorney to deter 'unacceptable' misuse of AI
An Illinois appeals court has fined an attorney $15,000 in an effort to crack down on and deter the misuse of artificial intelligence in case briefs. (Image from Shutterstock)
An Illinois appeals court has fined an attorney $15,000 in an effort to crack down on and deter the misuse of artificial intelligence in case briefs.
According to a July 28 opinion by the the Illinois Appellate Court for the First District, Mason Cole of Cole Sadkin filed briefs that included 10 false statutory quotations, false case citations and improper statement of facts.
“This is unacceptable,” the appeals court said. “Attorney Cole’s response should have included scrupulously accurate and precise citations. Instead, it is yet another sloppy filing that misstates the law and creates more work for this court.”
When responding to the errors earlier this month, Cole, the petitioner’s attorney, admitted to frequently using “a premier corporate subscription of ChatGPT” to “synthesize complex matters.” But Cole also said he tries to cross-reference all citations “with LexisNexis to avoid hallucinations.”
“Frustratingly, attorney Cole’s response itself contains misstatements of law,” the court wrote, referring to a footnote in the response brief where Cole cited a statutory subsection that doesn’t exist, attributed a quote to the wrong subsection, and misquoted the subsection.
The appeals court ordered Cole to pay a $1,500 fine for each false citation and quotation, noting that this rate was higher than what other courts have imposed for similar transgressions. However, the appeals court said, AI-hallucinated citations are an increasingly prevalent problem, and higher fines may have to be imposed to deter the improper use of AI.
“Courts have no choice but to increase fines for AI-hallucinated citations until those fines have a significant deterrent effect,” according to the opinion.
Law.com has additional coverage of the appeals court’s decision, which affirmed an order from the Illinois Human Rights Commission that sustained the dismissal of Starbucks employee Kimberly Scott’s charge of workplace racial discrimination against the company.
Law.com was unable to reach Cole for comment.
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