Lawyers sanctioned after ChatGPT fabricated six fake case citations in Mata v. Avianca

compliance-violation hallucination

Est. Damage ~$5k

Attribution Anonymous

Independent project · aggregated from public reports and may be unverified — see the primary source below · not affiliated with or endorsed by any company or product named.

Incident Summary

In a personal-injury suit against Avianca, attorney Steven Schwartz used ChatGPT for research and submitted a brief citing six judicial decisions that did not exist — ChatGPT invented them and even 'confirmed' they were real when asked. U.S. District Judge Castel sanctioned Schwartz and co-counsel Peter LoDuca $5,000 and required corrective letters. It became the landmark cautionary tale about AI hallucination in legal filings.

Case Analysis

Verified Facts

The brief cited six nonexistent cases generated by ChatGPT
ChatGPT 'confirmed' the fake cases when asked
Judge Castel imposed a $5,000 sanction in June 2023

Operational Lessons

→Always verify AI-provided citations against primary sources
→LLMs assert fabricated facts with confidence

Primary Source

Mata v. Avianca, Inc. (Wikipedia)en.wikipedia.org ↗

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