Senior U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock in Mississippi didn't just throw out a contract dispute — she kicked all four lawyers off the case after discovering that both sides had used generative AI to write court filings, complete with fake legal citations.
The case started as a simple fee dispute between lawyer Tom Withers and the city of Aberdeen, Mississippi. But when both legal teams submitted documents citing made-up precedents — courtesy of AI hallucinations — the judge had seen enough. In her sanctions order, Aycock noted the court was once again "forced to deal with errors caused by AI hallucinations in court filings," and criticized the attorneys for becoming "rubber stamps" for AI tools without verifying the output.
The judge halted proceedings, canceled the trial, and disqualified all four lawyers. Two lead attorneys are banned from practicing in the Northern District of Mississippi for two years. Each lawyer faces fines between $1,000 and $3,500, depending on their responsibility for failing to fact-check the AI's work.
Robert Freund, a lawyer who tracks AI hallucination cases in the legal world, was the first to spot this one. He described it as "a comedy of AI errors," adding that it was essentially two parties paying ChatGPT to argue with itself in court.