In what may be one of the most significant appellate sanctions rulings yet involving fabricated case citations, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has imposed substantial penalties on two Tennessee attorneys for filing briefs containing more than two dozen fake or misrepresented citations.
The court sanctioned attorneys Van R. Irion and Russ Egli, ordering each to pay $15,000 in punitive fines to the court registry, plus joint responsibility for the appellees’ full attorney fees on appeal and double costs.
The sanctions stem from consolidated appeals in Whiting v. City of Athens, Tennessee, arising from litigation over a 2022 fireworks show and its aftermath.
Worth noting, however, is that the court did not expressly find that the fabricated citations were the result of using generative AI. Rather, the court emphasized that no filing should contain citations, however generated, that a lawyer has not personally read and verified.
Extensive Misconduct
In its March 13 opinion, the three-judge panel — consisting of Judges Jane B. Stranch, John K. Bush and Eric E. Murphy — catalogued extensive problems with the briefs submitted by Irion and Egli on behalf of their client Glenn Whiting.
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