We’re still seeing filings with fake AI-generated case citations. In this one, the pro se Appellant was fined $10,000 for his frivolous appeal with 22(!) of them.

In this case from the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, Division Two, the Court, citing “numerous fatal briefing deficiencies under the Rules of Appellate Procedure that prevent us from engaging in meaningful review, including the submission of fictitious cases generated by artificial intelligence (‘A.I.’)”, dismissed the appeal filed by Appellant Jonathan R. Karlen. The appellant was also fined $10,000.

Respondent Molly Kruse moved to strike Appellant’s brief and to dismiss the case for failure to comply with the Rules of Appellate Procedure, including that Appellant failed to include an Appendix, an adequate Statement of Facts, a Points Relied On section, an adequate Table of Contents or Table of Authorities, or accurate legal citations.

Lack of accurate legal citations is an understatement. As the Court stated: “Particularly concerning to this Court is that Appellant submitted an Appellate Brief in which the overwhelming majority of the citations are not only inaccurate but entirely fictitious. Only two out of the twenty-four case citations in Appellant’s Brief are genuine.”

The Court gave this example of “Appellant’s reliance on fictitious authority”, stating “Neither the case nor the specific quote it purports to contain exist in reality”:

For instance, in Smith v. ABC Corporation, 321 S.W.3d 123 (Mo. App. 2010), the Court of Appeals held that it had the duty to review the grant of judgment as a matter of law de novo, stating that “the appellate court should not be bound by the trial court’s determination and must reach its own conclusion based on the record.”

In providing a chart of the fictitious cases, the Court stated: “Appellant also offers citations that have potentially real case names – presumably the product of algorithmic serendipity – but do not stand for the propositions asserted by Appellant”.

In his Reply Brief, the Appellant apologized for submitting fictitious cases and claimed that he hired an online “consultant” purporting to be an attorney licensed in California to prepare the Appellate Brief. Still, the Court stated: “Filing an appellate brief with bogus citations in this Court for any reason cannot be countenanced and represents a flagrant violation of the duties of candor Appellant owes to this Court.”

The Court also cited the article Is Disclosure and Certification of the Use of Generative AI Really Necessary? written by Maura R. Grossman, Paul W. Grimm and Daniel G. Brown (available here, we covered it here), as follows: “Citing nonexistent case law or misrepresenting the holdings of a case is making a false statement to a court[;] [i]t does not matter if [generative A.I.] told you so.” And, of course, the Court cited Mata v. Avianca (the “OG” of fake case citation cases) with this quote, as follows:

“A fake opinion is not ‘existing law’ and citation to a fake opinion does not provide a non-frivolous ground for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law, or for establishing new law. An attempt to persuade a court or oppose an adversary by relying on fake opinions is an abuse of the adversary system.”

As I mentioned here, fake case citations aren’t just for lawyers – pro se parties file them too. Fines are necessary to address the issue, but fines will be hard-pressed to serve as a deterrent, given how many pro se parties there are out there and how unlikely many of them are to know the rules, the ethics and what has happened to other parties who have done so.  The “wild west” continues!

So, what do you think? Do you think the fact that the Appellant was fined $10,000 will serve as a deterrent? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image created using Bing Image Creator Powered by DALL-E, using the term “robot slipping on a banana peel in a courtroom”.

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