Iovino v. Michael Stapleton Associates, Ltd.

Iovino v. Michael Stapleton Assocs., Ltd., 2024 WL 3520170 (W.D. Va. July 24, 2024).

Counsel filed papers containing multiple unlocatable cases and quotations, described in the defendant's opposition brief as "ChatGPT run amok" (quoted at p. 14 of the court's opinion).

The court held the attorney remains fully responsible for filings regardless of the tool used, consistent with duties of candor and reasonable inquiry. Outcome (from the completed record): the July 2024 opinion only ordered counsel to show cause. The responding attorney was Thad M. Guyer, whom the opinion does not name; his OSC response (Doc. 191, Aug. 26, 2024) and declaration (Doc. 191-1) admitted the AI use. At the October 9, 2024 show-cause hearing (transcript, Doc. 204), Judge Cullen declined to impose sanctions, finding an honest mistake rather than intentional misconduct: Guyer had taken sole responsibility, proactively reported additional citation errors that the court and opposing counsel had missed, adopted verification safeguards, and voluntarily self-referred to the Oregon State Bar, though the court criticized the tone of his initial written response, whose arguments his counsel retracted at the hearing.

R2, Owned It Late (Guyer only: opposing counsel's brief flagged the fabricated citations and his team filed no errata before the July 24, 2024 show-cause order; his sworn declaration then admitted the AI use, took sole responsibility, and proactively disclosed additional Menocal misquotations the court and opposing counsel had missed; he created Westlaw/Lexis quotation-validation safeguards and voluntarily self-referred to the Oregon State Bar; his written response's minimization and blame-shifting were retracted by his counsel at the October 9, 2024 hearing, where Judge Cullen credited that Guyer "owned the mistake" and declined sanctions outright; graded on the completed set, Stage 3 Q-D22-R1/R2).

If a case cannot be located in Westlaw, Lexis, or a court website, it does not go in the brief, "unlocatable" is a stop sign, not a formatting problem.