Apr 17, 2026Unverified
Oregon federal judge sanctioned two lawyers $110,000 over AI-fabricated case citations
What the law is doingMisinformationDERIVED
Approved by person, Oct 11, 2026. How entries are approved
U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark D. Clarke of the District of Oregon imposed $110,000 in fines and attorney fees against two lawyers who filed briefs filled with fake cases and fabricated quotations produced with AI assistance, calling the case 'a notorious outlier in both degree and volume' in the sanctions universe and dismissing the underlying $12 million elder-abuse winery dispute with prejudice. San Diego attorney Stephen Brigandi and Portland attorney Tim Murphy were sanctioned; the judge said AI tools were used to draft the briefs and that counsel's silence despite multiple opportunities to explain 'speaks volumes'. ABA Journal reported the penalty on April 17, 2026, citing the December 12 opinion.
What this means for youCourts are now penalizing lawyers who file AI-invented cases, so anyone relying on AI-written legal filings should verify every citation. At work, staff who use AI for research or drafting should check each source before it goes into a document that others will act on.
Sources
- ABA Journalhttps://www.abajournal.com/news/article/oregon-federal-judge-hands-down-110000-penalty-for-ai-errors
Incident records from the AI Agent Incident Database by sipi.bot (https://sipi.bot/incidents/), licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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