● MEDIUM✓ CONFIRMED
Federal court sanctions attorney for filing brief with fabricated citations reportedly produced by ChatGPT
- Date of incident
- February 20, 2026
- Jurisdiction
- US-TX
- Sources
- 1 cited
- Last verified
- May 5, 2026
Summary
A federal court in the Southern District of Texas issued a $2,500 sanction against an attorney whose brief cited six judicial opinions that did not exist. The attorney is reported to have stated that the citations were generated using ChatGPT without subsequent verification. The court's order, available on PACER, requires the attorney to complete additional CLE on AI tool use.
Court ruling
A court ruling found that the citations in the November 2025 filing did not correspond to any real judicial decisions, citing docket 4:25-cv-03812.
Sources
- 01CourtListener — Order, S.D. Tex. (Feb 20, 2026)primary2/20/2026