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2 posts tagged with "Federal Court"

Discussion of U.S. federal AI-related cases.

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“Three Ways AI Can Make Things Up. How True But Irrelevant Can Be Harder to Correct Than Pure Nonsense.”

· 5 min read
Chad Ratashak
Chad Ratashak
Owner, Midwest Frontier AI Consulting LLC

More Than One Type of Hallucination​

ChatGPT sometimes makes things up. For example, ChatGPT famously made up fictional court cases that were cited by attorneys for the plaintiff in Mata v. Avianca. But totally made up things should be easy to spot if you search for the sources. It’s when there’s a kernel of truth that large language model (LLM) hallucinations can waste the most time for lawyers and judges or small businesses and their customers.

  1. A “Pure Hallucination” is something made up completely with no basis in fact.
  2. A “Hallucinated Summary” has a footnote or other citation referencing a real source, but the LLM’s description of what that source says has little if anything to do with the source.
  3. An “Irrelevant Reference” is when an LLM cites a real sources and summarizes it fairly correctly, but the citation itself is not relevant to the purpose of the citation. This might be because the information is outdated, because the point only tangentially refers to the same topic, or for other reasons.
info

These examples were derived by actually reading the sources and were not written by LLMs. All of the written content on our website and social media is human-written, unless it is an example of AI-output that is clearly labelled.

danger

AI can help people summarize or rephrase content they know well. But Midwest Frontier AI Consulting strongly encourages AI users not to rely on AI-generated overviews of content they are not already familiar with precisely because of the subtler forms of AI hallucinations described below.

Scenario 1: You Got Your Chocolate In My Case Law​

  • Pure Hallucination: ** The LLM says: “Wonka v. Slugworth clearly states that chocolate recipes are not intellectual property.” ** In reality: No such case exists.

  • Hallucinated Summary: ** The LLM says: “NESTLE USA v. DOE clearly states that chocolate recipes are not intellectual property.” ** In reality: The case involves a chocolate company but is not about intellectual property rights.

  • Irrelevant Reference:

    • The LLM Says: ‘HERSHEY CREAMERY v. HERSHEY CHOCOLATE involved two parties that both owned trademarks to “HERSHEY’S” for ice cream and chocolate, respectively. This supports our assertion that chocolate recipes are not intellectual property.’
    • In reality: The facts of the case do not support the conclusion.

1. Mata v. Avianca Was Not Mainly About ChatGPT

· 10 min read
Chad Ratashak
Chad Ratashak
Owner, Midwest Frontier AI Consulting LLC

Mata v. Avianca: The First ChatGPT Misuse Case​

The case Mata v. Avianca was a personal injury lawsuit against an airline in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). However, the reason it became a landmark legal case was not the lawsuit itself, but the sanctions issued against the plaintiff’s lawyers for citing fake legal cases made up by ChatGPT. At least that was the popular version of the story emphasized by some reports. The reality, according to the judge’s opinion related to the sanctions, is that the penalty was about the attorneys doubling down on their misuse of AI in an attempt to conceal it. They had several opportunities to admit their fault and come clean (page 2, Mata v. Avianca, Inc., No. 1:2022cv01461 - Document 54 (S.D.N.Y. 2023)).

Take this New York Times headline “A Man Sued Avianca Airline. His Lawyer Used ChatGPT,” May 27, 2023. This article, written before the sanctions hearing in June 2023, focused on the ChatGPT-gone-wrong angle. By contrast, Sarah Isgur of the Advisory Opinions podcast had a very good breakdown noting the attorney’s responsibility and the back-and-forth that preceded the sanctions (episode “Excessive Fines and Strange Bedfellows,” May 31, 2023). However, in that podcast episode the hosts questioned the utility of ChatGPT for legal research and said “that is what Lexis and Westlaw are for” but as of 2025 both tools have added AI features including use of OpenAI’s GPT large language models (LLMs).[^1]

caution

I am not an attorney and the opinions expressed in this article should not be construed as legal advice.

A surrealist pattern of repeated dreamers hallucinating about the law and airplanes. Hallucinating cases about airlines.

Why Care? Our Firm Doesn’t Use AI​

Before I get into the details of the case, I want to point out that only one attorney directly used AI. It was his first time using ChatGPT. But another attorney and the law firm also got in trouble. It only takes one person using AI without proper training and without an AI policy to harm the firm. It seems that one of the drivers for AI use was access to other federal research tools was too expensive or unavailable, a problem that may be more common for solo firms and smaller firms.

Partner of Levidow, Levidow & Oberman: “We regret what's occurred. We practice primarily in state court, and Fast Case has been enough. There was a billing error and we did not have Federal access.” Matthew Russell Lee’s Newsletter Substack

You might say, “Fine! We just won’t use AI then.” Do you have a written policy stating that? Do you really not use AI? I have two simple questions:

  1. Do you have Microsoft Office? (then you probably have Office 365 Copilot)
  2. Do you search for things on Google? (then you probably see the AI Overview) If the answer to either is yes (extremely likely), are you taking measures to avoid using these AI features? If not, how can you say you don’t use AI? Simply put, avoiding AI is not the default option. It requires conscious effort to avoid the features being added to existing software, from word processors to specialty legal research tools.

Overview of Fake Citations​

The lawyers submitted hallucinated cases including the court and judges who supposedly issued them, hallucinated docket numbers and made up dates.