In response to U.S. District Judge Kelly H. Rankin's order to explain why eight of the nine cases cited in the motions in limine do not appear to exist, the plaintiffs' attorneys — including T. Michael Morgan, the son of Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan — admitted that their internal AI platform hallucinated the cases while helping draft the filing.
"This matter comes with great embarrassment and has prompted discussion and action regarding the training, implementation, and future use of artificial intelligence within our firm," the response states. "This serves as a cautionary tale for our firm and all firms, as we enter this new age of artificial intelligence."
The issue came up a couple weeks ago when defendants Walmart and Jetson Electric Bikes pointed out in their opposition brief that they failed to identify the cited cases through Westlaw, LexisNexis, PACER and Google, but were able to find some of the citations on ChatGPT.
Except for one of the cases, "plaintiffs' cited cases seemingly do not exist anywhere other than in the world of artificial intelligence," the defendants said, asking the court to "wholly disregard" the cases and deny the motions in limine.
The underlying litigation was filed in July 2023 by Stephanie and Matthew Wadsworth on behalf of their four minor children after they allege that a "defective and unreasonably dangerous hoverboard" exploded and caught fire in their home.
The family alleges that the product, a Jetson Plasma Iridescent Hoverboard, is defective, hazardous and malfunctioned when it was being used in the intended manner.
Last week, Judge Rankin issued an order to show cause why the plaintiffs' attorneys should not be sanctioned or face other disciplinary action, telling counsel to "provide a true and accurate copy of all cases used in support" of the motions at issue by Monday.
On Friday, the plaintiffs' attorneys filed a notice that they were withdrawing the motions at issue.
Along with their explanation on Monday, the attorneys also filed an unopposed motion to substitute Morgan as lead counsel and to "excuse" Rudwin Ayala of Morgan from the pretrial conference set for Tuesday. Judge Rankin granted the motion the same day, according to a text order on the docket.
A representative for Walmart declined to comment. Plaintiffs' counsel could not be immediately reached for comment Monday evening.
This is not the first time attorneys have had trouble with citations gone wrong in legal briefs that seemingly involve artificial intelligence.
Last month, a Minnesota federal judge threw out an erroneous expert declaration prepared by a Stanford University expert on artificial intelligence in litigation over the state's law on deepfakes, finding that the fake, AI-generated sources in his declaration "shatters his credibility with this court."
"The irony," wrote U.S. District Judge Laura M. Provinzino in her order excluding the declaration.
In 2023, two New York personal injury attorneys made headlines by submitting a ChatGPT-generated brief with fake case citations. The attorneys were ultimately sanctioned for their mistake.
And several other courts, including Texas and Missouri state appeals courts, have called out litigants for submitting seemingly AI-generated court filings with fake case citations. And a Manhattan federal judge criticized a law firm for using ChatGPT to support its attorney fee request of more than $100,000.
The plaintiffs are represented by T. Michael Morgan of Morgan & Morgan PA and Taly Goody of Goody Law Group.
Walmart and Jetson Electric Bikes are represented by Eugene M. LaFlamme, Jared B. Giroux and Jillian L. Lukens of McCoy Leavitt Laskey LLC and Timothy M. Stubson, Brandon E. Pryde and Holly L. Tysse of Crowley Fleck PLLP.
The case is Stephanie Wadsworth et al. v. Walmart Inc. et al., case number 2:23-cv-00118, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming.
--Additional reporting by Hailey Konnath, Sarah Martinson, Ryan Boysen, Rose Krebs and Madison Arnold. Editing by Michael Watanabe.
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