US appeals court fines lawyers $30,000 in latest AI-related sanction

By Mike Scarcella

WASHINGTON, March 16 (Reuters) - An appeal containing fake case citations that misrepresent the law can be dismissed as frivolous, a U.S. federal appeals court panel said in a decision sanctioning two attorneys who submitted filings that bore the hallmarks of artificial intelligence "hallucinations."

The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in its order on Friday that attorneys Van Irion and Russ Egli “sullied the reputation of our bar, which now must litigate under the cloud of their conduct.”

The court said it found more than two dozen fake citations and misrepresentations of fact in the appeal, which involved an incident at a fireworks show hosted by the city of Athens, Tennessee.

The appeals court in a prior order in the case asked the attorneys how they vetted their briefs for accuracy and whether they used generative AI to write the filings. The attorneys did not answer the court's questions about AI, and instead challenged the lawfulness of the order.

The two attorneys must reimburse Athens for its legal work on the appeal, and also must individually pay $15,000 each to the appeals court as a punitive sanction, according to the order.

Egli had no immediate comment. Irion did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The city of Athens also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The sanctions decision comes as more courts grapple with fake case citations and other errors attributable to generative artificial intelligence platforms, which sometimes fabricate information. Lawyers are not prohibited from using AI tools but are bound to safeguard the accuracy of their submissions, and dozens of attorneys have been sanctioned in recent years for submitting AI-generated material that they failed to vet.

Irion and Egli had contested the appeals court’s demand for details about how they prepared their filings partly on the grounds that doing so would violate protections for attorneys' work-product and communications with clients.

The 6th Circuit panel, Circuit Judges John Bush, Jane Branstetter Stranch and Eric Murphy, said “whether and how the briefs were cite-checked does not implicate conversations regarding legal advice.”

“Most litigants caught submitting fake cases have apologized and sought forgiveness, rightly recognizing the seriousness of their misconduct,” Bush wrote for the panel.

The judges said by contrast “Irion and Egli scolded this court and accused it of engaging in a vast conspiracy to harass them.”

The case is Glenn Whiting v. City of Athens, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 25-5424.

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