Sep 11, 2025Single source
Arizona appeals court sanctions self-represented appellant over reportedly AI-generated false citations in probate brief
AI loose in the worldMisinformationDERIVED
Approved by person, Oct 11, 2026. How entries are approved
Jeffrey Kotchka, representing himself in a probate appeal over his late mother's estate, reportedly used AI tools to prepare his opening brief. The Arizona Court of Appeals found six of eight citations deficient, including two nonexistent cases, and said he did not verify them. He must pay his sister's related attorney fees.
What this means for youAI tools can invent cases or facts that look real. If you use one for legal or official paperwork, check every citation against the original source, because courts can penalise you for errors.
Sources
- AI Incident Databasehttps://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1600
Data from the AI Incident Database (incidentdatabase.ai), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. IAAI-21.
Source data license: CC BY-SA 4.0 (database). Report contents keep their own rights; reports.text, submissions, images and videos are excluded from the data license.
Covered by snapshot 45
da93f03b406f409940d0a6ef47b526607f82ebf457d98f69299b88aceede576a
This entry is record number 2353. It has not been edited since it was approved; the hash above would not match if it had. How to verify