Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca of Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, P.C., were representing an individual who accused Avianca Airlines of negligence after he was injured during a flight.According to court papers, Mr. Schwartz is accused of citing roughly half a dozen fake cases to support his legal arguments. Opposing counsel caught the fabrications and challenged the citations.
Judge P. Kevin Castel, who is overseeing the dispute, set a hearing for next week, June 8, to consider imposing sanctions on the lawyers for their use of false case law.Mr. Schwartz admitted in a court filing that he did not confirm the sources provided by the artificial intelligence bot. Lawyers representing the attorneys ahead of their discipline hearing did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Times.Some legal scholars have claimed the AI bot could face defamation challenges for providing false reports about individuals.
Earlier this year, Brian Hood, a mayor in an area northwest of Melbourne, Australia, made news when he threatened to sue OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which falsely reported he’s guilty of a foreign bribery scandal. The false accusations allegedly occurred in the early 2000s with the Reserve Bank of Australia. A spokesperson from Open AI, which owns Chat GPT, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.