The passages in which the court addresses the fabricated authority, verbatim, by document. A bracketed ellipsis marks where a passage was cut for length; nothing else is changed.
Docket entry 54, 22 June 2023 · source · PDF · 43 pages
Docket text. OPINION AND ORDER ON SANCTIONS: The Court Orders the following sanctions pursuant to Rule 11, or, alternatively, its inherent authority: a. Within 14 days of this Order, Respondents shall send via first-class mail a letter individually addressed to plaintiff Roberto Mata that identifies and attaches this Opinion and Order, a transcript of the hearing of June 8, 2023 and a copy of the April 25 Affirmation, including its exhibits. b. Within 14 days of this Order, Respondents shall send via first-class mail a letter individually addressed to each judge falsely identified as the author of the fake "Varghese", "Shaboon", "Petersen", "Martinez", "Durden" and "Miller" opinions. The lettershall identify and attach this Opinion and Order, a transcript of the hearing of June 8, 2023 and a copy of the April 25 Affirmation, including the fake "opinion" attributed to the recipient judge. c. Within 14 days of this Opinion and Order, respondents shall file with this Court copies of the letters sent in compliance with (a) and (b). d. A penalty of $5,000 is jointly and severally imposed on Respondents and shall be paid into the Registry of this Court within 14 days of this Opinion and Order. SO ORDERED. (Signed by Judge P. Kevin Castel on 6/22/2023) (ama) Transmission to Finance Unit (Cashiers) for processing. (Entered: 06/22/2023)
Schwartz and the law firm of Levidow, Levidow & Oberman P.C. (the “Levidow Firm”) (collectively, “Respondents”) abandoned their responsibilities when they submitted non-existent judicial opinions with fake quotes and citations created by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question. Many harms flow from the submission of fake opinions.
(ECF 24.) It included the following statement: “Although Plaintiff ostensibly cites to a variety of cases in opposition to this motion, the undersigned has been unable to locate most of the case law cited in Plaintiff’s Affirmation in Opposition, and the few cases which the undersigned has been able to locate do not stand for the propositions for which they are cited.” (ECF 24 at 1.) It impliedly asserted that certain cases cited in the Affirmation in Opposition were non-existent: “Plaintiff does not dispute that this action is governed by the Montreal Convention, and Plaintiff has not cited any existing authority holding that the Bankruptcy Code tolls the two-year limitations period or […]
(ECF 24.) 8. Despite the serious nature of Avianca’s allegations, no Respondent sought to withdraw the March 1 Affirmation or provide any explanation to the Court of how it could possibly be that a case purportedly in the Federal Reporter or Federal Supplement could not be found. 9.
As it was later revealed, Mr. Schwartz had used ChatGPT, which fabricated the cited cases. Mr.
Mr. Schwartz testified at the sanctions hearing that when he reviewed the reply memo, he was “operating under the false perception that this website [i.e., ChatGPT] could not possibly be fabricating cases on its own.” (Tr. at 31.) He stated, “I just was not thinking that the case could be fabricated, so I was not looking at it from that point of view.” (Tr. at 35.) “My reaction was, ChatGPT is finding that case somewhere. Maybe it’s unpublished.
(Tr. 23-24, 28-29.) He admitted that he entered the citation to “Varghese” but could not find it: THE COURT: Did you say, well they gave me part of Varghese, let me look at the full Varghese decision? MR.
MR. SCHWARTZ: I did, again, operating under the false assumption and disbelief that this website could produce completely fabricated cases. And if I knew that, I obviously never would have submitted these cases. - 7 - (Tr.
Mr. Schwartz understood the import of the Orders of April 11 and 12 requiring the production of the actual cases: “I thought the Court searched for the cases [and] could not find them . . . .” (Tr. 36.) 16.
Docket entry 49, 8 June 2023 · source · PDF · 29 pages
Docket text. AMENDED MEMORANDUM OF LAW re: 33 Order to Show Cause,,,,,,,,,,, . Document filed by Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, P.C., Steven Schwartz..(Maulsby, Tyler) (Entered: 06/08/2023)
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT In the Order, the Court describes this situation as “unprecedented.” We agree. We can find no case where, as here, a lawyer using a new, highly-touted research tool obtained cases that the research tool itself completely made up. The lawyer, Mr.
Id. at ¶ 32, 36. The April 25 Affidavit In its reply brief, Defendant’s counsel stated that it could not locate several cases cited in Respondents’ opposition.5 (DE 24.) On April 11 and 12, 2023, this Court ordered Mr. LoDuca to file an affidavit annexing eight cases that defense counsel could not locate.
Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd., 516 F.3d 1237 (11th Cir. 2008), which was one of the requested cases and was cited within one of the other cases (Varghese) that turned out to be fabricated. 8 remaining six cases (the “ChatGPT Cases”).
Yet their explanation is simple and reasonable: it still seemed inconceivable to them that ChatGPT’s results were complete fabrications. The First Order to Show Cause and Respondents’ Reply On April 26, 2023, Defendant’s counsel filed a letter noting that it still could not locate many of the cases. (DE 30.) On May 4, 2023, the Court issued an Order (DE 31, the “First OSC”), in which the Court observed that six of the proffered cases in the April 25 Affidavit (i.e., the ChatGPT Cases) appeared to be fabricated.
(See DE 32 at ¶ 4.) 10 ChatGPT whether Varghese, which at that point Mr. Schwartz understood did not exist (see DE 31), was a real case. ChatGPT confidently answered “Yes, Varghese . . . is a real case.” (DE 32- 1).
(DE 32-1 at ¶ 5.) Mr. Schwartz further confirmed that he had located the six non-existent cases using ChatGPT, which he did not know was unreliable. (Id. at ¶¶ 6-11.) Mr.
Schwartz legitimately thought that he was using a new, state-of-the art search engine, not an artificial language program. He had no idea this program would fabricate case law, and certainly was not trying to mislead the court or knowingly engage in frivolous or vexatious conduct. Second, Mr.
Schwartz’s Misunderstanding of ChatGPT Does Not Show Bad Faith For sanctions to issue, the Court must find that Mr. Schwartz knew that he was submitting fictitious cases to the Court, either in the original Affirmation in Opposition or the April 25 Affidavit. Rivas, 2014 WL 3694983, at *2 (“Proof of actual knowledge, and not merely what a reasonable attorney should have known, is required” to satisfy the subjective bad faith standard) (emphasis added).
Docket entry 46, 6 June 2023 · source · PDF · 8 pages
Docket text. DECLARATION of Steven A. Schwartz, Esq. re: 33 Order to Show Cause,,,,,,,,,,, . Document filed by Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, P.C., Steven Schwartz. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A, # 2 Exhibit B).(Maulsby, Tyler) (Entered: 06/06/2023)
As detailed below and in the accompanying Memorandum of Law, I respectfully request that the Court decline to impose sanctions against me, my law firm and my colleague, Peter LoDuca. First and foremost, I want to deeply apologize to the Court for citing cases that turned out to be fabricated and later submitting what I understood to be copies or excerpts of those nonexistent cases. At the time that I performed the legal research in this case, I believed that ChatGPT was a reliable search engine.
As noted above, when I was entering these search queries, I was under the erroneous impression that ChatGPT was a type of search engine, not a piece of technology designed to converse with its users. I simply had no idea that ChatGPT was capable of fabricating entire case citations or judicial opinions, especially in a manner that appeared authentic. 4 21.
The April 25 Affidavit 22. In response to Defendant's reply brief— which stated that defense counsel could not locate several of the cases cited in our opposition papers — the Court ordered Mr. LoDuca to file an affidavit annexing nine of the cases cited in our opposition.
Because I did not have another research database with access to the federal reporters available to me, I did not take these citations and obtain full copies of the cases from another source. (I realize now that I could have gone to a bar association library or colleague that had access to Westlaw and Lexis, but it did not occur to me at the time.) However, when I was responding, I still did not believe it was possible that the cases ChatGPT was providing were completely fabricated. I therefore attached the ChatGPT Cases to the April 25 Affidavit.
The First OSC and My Realization That the ChatGPT Cases Were Not Authentic 28. In response to the April 25 Affidavit as well as a letter from defense counsel representing that it still could not find the ChatGPT Cases, this Court issued an Order to Show Cause on May 4, 2023 directed to Mr. LoDuca (DE 31, the "First OSC").
LoDuca (DE 31, the "First OSC"). The First OSC stated that the Court could not find any record of six of the cases that we attached to the April 25 Affidavit (i.e. the ChatGPT Cases). 29.
30. Before the First OSC, however, I still could not fathom that ChatGPT could produce multiple fictitious cases, all of which had various indicia of reliability such as case captions, the names of the judges from the correct locations, and detailed fact patterns and legal analysis that sounded authentic. The First OSC caused me to have doubts.
Docket entry 45, 6 June 2023 · source · PDF · 29 pages
Docket text. MEMORANDUM OF LAW re: 33 Order to Show Cause,,,,,,,,,,, . Document filed by Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, P.C., Steven Schwartz..(Maulsby, Tyler) (Entered: 06/06/2023)
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT In the Order, the Court describes this situation as “unprecedented.” We agree. We can find no case where, as here, a lawyer using a new, highly-touted research tool obtained cases that the research tool itself completely made up. The lawyer, Mr.
Id. at ¶ 32, 36. The April 25 Affidavit In its reply brief, Defendant’s counsel stated that it could not locate several cases cited in Respondents’ opposition.5 (DE 24.) On April 11 and 12, 2023, this Court ordered Mr. LoDuca to file an affidavit annexing eight cases that defense counsel could not locate.
Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd., 516 F.3d 1237 (11th Cir. 2008), which was one of the requested cases and was cited within one of the other cases (Varghese) that turned out to be fabricated. 8 remaining six cases (the “ChatGPT Cases”).
Yet their explanation is simple and reasonable: it still seemed inconceivable to them that ChatGPT’s results were complete fabrications. The First Order to Show Cause and Respondents’ Reply On April 26, 2023, Defendant’s counsel filed a letter noting that it still could not locate many of the cases. (DE 30.) On May 4, 2023, the Court issued an Order (DE 31, the “First OSC”), in which the Court observed that six of the proffered cases in the April 25 Affidavit (i.e., the ChatGPT Cases) appeared to be fabricated.
(See DE 32 at ¶ 4.) 10 ChatGPT whether Varghese, which at that point Mr. Schwartz understood did not exist (see DE 31), was a real case. ChatGPT confidently answered “Yes, Varghese . . . is a real case.” (DE 32- 1).
(DE 32-1 at ¶ 5.) Mr. Schwartz further confirmed that he had located the six non-existent cases using ChatGPT, which he did not know was unreliable. (Id. at ¶¶ 6-11.) Mr.
Schwartz legitimately thought that he was using a new, state-of-the art search engine, not an artificial language program. He had no idea this program would fabricate case law, and certainly was not trying to mislead the court or knowingly engage in frivolous or vexatious conduct. Second, Mr.
Schwartz’s Misunderstanding of ChatGPT Does Not Show Bad Faith For sanctions to issue, the Court must find that Mr. Schwartz knew that he was submitting fictitious cases to the Court, either in the original Affirmation in Opposition or the April 25 Affidavit. Rivas, 2014 WL 3694983, at *2 (“Proof of actual knowledge, and not merely what a reasonable attorney should have known, is required” to satisfy the subjective bad faith standard) (emphasis added).