{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-11-07T02:56:10.743Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"fabricated-citations","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"contextual","evidence":"","year":"2023","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":1,"coverage":{"cases":1,"countries":0,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":1,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":1,"minors":0,"coreRelations":1,"contextualRelations":1,"mixedRelations":1,"unknownRelations":0,"relationPending":0,"relationUnknown":0},"countingNote":"Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.","affectedCountNote":"Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.","source":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2023-new-york-federal-judge-sanctions-lawyers-over-chatgpt-invented-cases-chatbot-said-were-real","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'March 1, 2023 submission that first cited the fake cases'; 'On March 1, 2023, Mr. LoDuca filed an “Affirmation in Opposition” to'; 'citing non-existent cases to the Court in his Affirmation in Opposition'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'The original case involved a man suing an airline over an alleged personal injury.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"An affirmation in opposition filed on 1 March 2023 in a personal-injury suit against Avianca cited judicial decisions that did not exist.","causal_attribution":"Established by the court record; BBC reports the nature of the suit."},{"id":"c2","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Mr. Schwartz had used ChatGPT, which'; 'fabricated the cited cases.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"used ChatGPT to look for similar previous cases.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The court found that the lawyer who researched the brief had used ChatGPT and that ChatGPT fabricated the cited cases.","causal_attribution":"Finding of the sanctions opinion, based on the lawyer's own testimony and filings; BBC reports his written statement."},{"id":"c3","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'“Is Varghese a real case” and “Are the other cases you provided fake”). (ECF 32-1.) ChatGPT'; 'responded that it had supplied “real” authorities that could be found through Westlaw,'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"ChatGPT responds again that the case is real and can be found on legal reference databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"When the lawyer asked ChatGPT whether Varghese was a real case and whether the other cases were fake, ChatGPT replied that it had supplied real authorities that could be found on legal databases.","causal_attribution":"The opinion describes the screenshots the lawyer filed (ECF 32-1); the exhibit itself was not read."},{"id":"c4","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'the Court finds bad faith on the part of the individual Respondents based upon acts of'; 'A penalty of $5,000 is jointly and severally imposed on'; 'mail a letter individually addressed to plaintiff'; 'mail a letter individually addressed to each judge falsely identified as the author of the fake'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"On 22 June 2023 the court found bad faith by both individual lawyers, imposed a USD 5,000 penalty jointly and severally on them and their firm, and ordered letters to the client and to each judge falsely identified as an author of the fake opinions.","causal_attribution":"Established by the sanctions opinion itself."},{"id":"c5","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'nothing inherently improper about using a reliable artificial intelligence tool for assistance. But'; 'then continued to stand by the fake opinions'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The court said that using a reliable AI tool is not inherently improper and based the sanctions on the lawyers continuing to stand by the fake opinions after the court questioned them.","causal_attribution":"Context and contrary weight: the sanction responds to the lawyers' conduct as well as to the AI output."}],"effects":[{"label":"two lawyers were found to have acted in bad faith and sanctioned over ChatGPT-invented case law","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368.54.0.pdf","kind":"court_record","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-28 from the RECAP copy of the 43-page opinion (HTTP 200, text extracted with pdftotext). The hearing transcript, the April and May affidavits and the screenshot exhibit (ECF 32-1) were not read separately.","independence_group":"sdny-avianca-sanctions-opinion"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65735769","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-28 (HTTP 200). BBC reports the filings before the sanctions hearing.","independence_group":"bbc-avianca-chatgpt-lawyer"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use","others_use"],"contexts":["justice","work"],"unknowns":["Whether any professional disciplinary body later acted against either lawyer, and whether the sanctions were appealed, was not checked in this review.","Which ChatGPT version was used; the opinion records the lawyer's prompts and the chatbot's responses only as summarised from exhibits.","Whether the fake citations affected the plaintiff's own claim; the separate ruling on the airline's motion to dismiss was not read."],"geography":{"basis":"The brief was filed in, and the sanctions imposed by, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (sanctions opinion). Where the lawyer ran his ChatGPT queries is not stated, so no event or affected-person country is recorded from the court seat.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published because the federal sanctions opinion of 22 June 2023 documents that ChatGPT fabricated the cases cited in a filed brief, that it told the lawyer who used it the cases were real, and that the court sanctioned two lawyers and their firm after finding bad faith.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-28"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The sanctions opinion finds that the lawyer who researched the brief used ChatGPT, which fabricated the cited cases, and records from his filed screenshots that when he asked whether Varghese was a real case and whether the other cases were fake, ChatGPT replied that it had supplied real authorities findable on Westlaw, LexisNexis and the Federal Reporter. The fabricated authorities reached the court in the 1 March 2023 filing; the court read them, found them fake and sanctioned the two lawyers (communicated_with for the lawyer who used ChatGPT; informed_decision_about because the court's sanctions decision acted on the AI-invented authorities). The court based its bad-faith finding on the lawyers' conduct after the citations were questioned.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with","informed_decision_about"]},"name":"New York federal judge sanctions two lawyers whose brief cited cases ChatGPT invented, after the chatbot told one of them the cases were real (2023)","summary":"In a passenger's personal-injury suit against the airline Avianca in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, an opposition brief filed on 1 March 2023 cited judicial opinions that did not exist. The court found that the lawyer who did the research had used ChatGPT, which fabricated the cases, and that when he asked the chatbot whether one of them was real it replied that it had supplied real authorities that could be found on legal databases. On 22 June 2023 the court found bad faith by the two lawyers, based on their conduct after the citations were questioned, and imposed a USD 5,000 penalty jointly on them and their firm, together with letters to the client and to each judge falsely named as an author of the fake opinions.","incidentDate":"2023-03-01","incidentEndDate":"2023-06-22","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","reportedDate":"2023-05-27","aiSystem":"ChatGPT, which the court found the researching lawyer used and which fabricated the cited cases","aiProduct":"ChatGPT","aiCompany":"OpenAI","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"verified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["legal_harm","professional_harm","financial_loss"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"According to the court's sanctions opinion of 22 June 2023, two lawyers were found to have acted in bad faith and, with their firm, were ordered to pay a USD 5,000 penalty and to write to the client and to the judges falsely named as authors of the ChatGPT-invented opinions.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"established","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"Two lawyers sanctioned in the 22 June 2023 opinion: the lawyer the court found used ChatGPT (counted as the AI user) and the attorney of record who filed the brief. The firm is not counted as a person.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US","platformType":"assistant","outcomeType":"regulatory_action","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368.54.0.pdf","primarySourceLabel":"US District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 1:22-cv-01461-PKC, Opinion and Order on Sanctions (ECF 54), 22 June 2023","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-28T03:16:40.650766+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-28T03:16:40.650766+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["chatgpt","fabricated-citations","federal-court","sanctions","lawyers","new-york"]}]}