Scott v. Illinois Human Rights Commission

The premium-subscription defense, rejected in terms. Mason Cole told the court he had used a "premier corporate subscription of ChatGPT" and cross-referenced with LexisNexis. His briefs still carried fabricated quotations of statutes, a nonexistent case, and misrepresented holdings, and after opposing counsel identified the errors, he repeated the fabricated statutory language in his reply brief and dismissed the whole thing as "technical deficiencies." The Illinois Appellate Court's answer is now a quotable standard: "The only acceptable standard is zero false citations."

Cole used ChatGPT to "synthesize complex matters" in Kimberly Scott's appeal of a Human Rights Commission dismissal. The briefs quoted a fictional "full investigation" requirement attributed to a real statutory section that contains no such language, cited a case that does not exist, and misstated holdings. Respondents flagged the errors; the reply brief repeated the fabricated statutory language anyway.

Illinois Supreme Court Rule 375 and the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct. The court found the violations willful and imposed $15,000, calculated at $1,500 per misstatement, a rate it deliberately set higher than prior precedent "given the persistence of the problem across jurisdictions." The clerk was directed to forward the opinion to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.

Verify statutes against the official code text, not against an AI's quotation of it; fabricated statutory language is as sanctionable as fabricated case law. When opposing counsel flags errors, correct every instance in the next filing. Minimizing caught fabrications as technical deficiencies is what converts negligence into willfulness.

This case is covered in Episode 15: $1,500 for Every Fake Citation (watch on YouTube).

• Primary opinion: https://www.illinoiscourts.gov/resources/23d7df84-ed51-48df-8477-3a6872db40d5/file
• ABAJournal.com: https://www.ABAJournal.com/news/article/fake-ai-created-citations-result-in-real-15000-fine-for-lawyer-in-illinois-appeals-court
• jdsupra.com: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ai-hallucinations-draw-15-000-sanction-9008449/