Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Judge recommends Rule 11 sanctions for attorney in employment case whose brief cited non-existent cases, (Sep 4, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

“The most logical explanation for the citation to non-existent authority is, of course, the use of generative AI to conduct legal research and/or draft the brief,” the judge stated, but the attorney disclaimed generative AI use.

In a report and recommendation filed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark J. Dinsmore with a federal district court in Indiana, Judge Dinsmore has recommended that an attorney representing a former employee in a lawsuit be sanctioned under Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 in the amount of $7,500 for filing a brief containing citations to non-existent cases.

Although providing examples of citations found within the attorney’s brief, including one citation that appeared to be “a rather bizarre amalgamation of several cases,” Judge Dinsmore explained that it was the attorney’s response at the show cause hearing that led to the recommendation.

Failed to take responsibility. Specifically, the court’s main concern was that the attorney failed to take responsibility. He identified the short deadline he was given to file it as the main reason for the errors in the brief, claiming that he did not have time to carefully review the draft created by his paralegal and also claiming that the paralegal did not use generative AI to aid in the drafting of the brief. However, the judge noted, neither the attorney nor the paralegal provided an alternative explanation for the erroneous citations.

As for the timeline, the judge noted that the discovery dispute in question was first discussed during a status conference weeks before any briefing and that the attorney “obviously should have had a legal basis for his positions with regard to the discovery disputes prior to taking those positions in his discovery responses, and he certainly should have done any necessary research to ensure that those positions were sound prior to the parties' meet-and-confer, and subsequent conference with the Court.” Thus, the judge noted that he had much more time than the three days to “consider and research the issues that were ultimately addressed in” the response brief to the motion to compel.

The judge noted that the attorney had represented that he subscribed to one of the major legal research sites and that “[i]t would have taken only a few minutes to check the validity of the citations in the brief” using that service before filing. However, the attorney “failed to take even that most basic of actions, and therefore did not catch the fact that the brief contained citations that did not exist.”

AI use and hallucination. “The most logical explanation for the citation to non-existent authority is, of course,” the judge noted, “the use of generative AI to conduct legal research and/or draft the brief. The issue of “hallucinated case[s] created by generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and Google Bard” has been “widely discussed by courts grappling with fictitious legal citations and reported by national news outlets.”

Nothing “fundamentally improper” about using AI. While the attorney represented that generative AI was not used, there was no other reason given for the erroneous citations. “Further, whether generative AI was or was not used to draft the brief is not particularly relevant to the analysis. There is nothing fundamentally improper in the use of AI tools to draft a brief.”

But must ensure accuracy. “Rather,” the judge explained, “it is counsel's abdication of his responsibility to ensure that the information he provided to the Court was accurate that is the basis for the sanctions recommended.” And courts, the judge explained, “have consistently held for decades that failing to check the treatment and soundness—let alone the existence—of a cited case warrants sanctions.”

“The advent of modern legal research tools” has made it possible for attorneys to “easily fulfill this basic duty,” the judge explained, “and there is simply no reason for an attorney to fail to do so.” And confirming that a case is good law is a routine matter expected from a practicing an attorney. Here, the attorney admitted that he “did not make the requisite reasonable inquiry into the law before filing his brief” and “[w]hether or not AI was the genesis of the non-existent citations,” the court explained, the attorney’s failure to review them prior to submitting them to the court was a violation of Rule 11.

In addition to recommending sanctions, the judge referred the matter to the Chief Judge pursuant to local rules.

The case is No. 1:24-cv-01918-JRS-MJD.

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