Jun 22, 2023Confirmed
ChatGPT fabricated six court cases that lawyers filed in Mata v. Avianca; judge sanctioned them $5,000
AI loose in the worldMisinformationDERIVED
Approved by person, Oct 11, 2026. How entries are approved
Attorneys Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca of Levidow, Levidow & Oberman filed a brief citing non-existent judicial opinions with fabricated quotes and citations produced by ChatGPT, and continued to stand by them after the court questioned their existence. On June 22, 2023, Judge P. Kevin Castel found bad faith and imposed a $5,000 sanction jointly on the lawyers and firm and ordered them to notify their client and the judges falsely named as authors.
What this means for youA language model will invent authoritative-looking sources, so never file, publish or quote anything it cites without pulling the original yourself.
Sources
- U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y. (opinion hosted by Berkeley Law)https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Mata-v-Avianca-Inc.pdf
- LawSiteshttps://www.lawnext.com/2023/06/court-imposes-sanctions-on-lawyers-who-filed-bogus-cases-after-relying-on-chatgpt-for-legal-research.html
Covered by snapshot 45
da93f03b406f409940d0a6ef47b526607f82ebf457d98f69299b88aceede576a
This entry is record number 2219. It has not been edited since it was approved; the hash above would not match if it had. How to verify