The meteoric rise of ChatGPT is shaking up multiple industries â including law, as one attorney recently found out.
Roberto Mata sued Avianca airlines for injuries he says he sustained from a serving cart while on the airline in 2019, claiming negligence by an employee. Steven Schwartz, an attorney with Levidow, Levidow & Oberman and licensed in New York for over three decades, handled Mataâs representation.
But at least six of the submitted cases by Schwartz as research for a brief âappear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations,â said Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York in an order.
The fake cases source? ChatGPT.
âThe court is presented with an unprecedented circumstance,â Castel wrote in a May 4 order.
Among the purported cases: Varghese v. China South Airlines, Martinez v. Delta Airlines, Shaboon v. EgyptAir, Petersen v. Iran Air, Miller v. United Airlines, and Estate of Durden v. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, all of which did not appear to exist to either the judge or defense, the filing said.
Schwartz, in an affidavit, said that he had never used ChatGPT as a legal research source prior to this case and, therefore, âwas unaware of the possibility that its content could be false.â He accepted responsibility for not confirming the chatbotâs sources.
Schwartz is now facing a sanctions hearing on June 8.
In an affidavit this week, he said he âgreatly regrets having utilized generative artificial intelligence to supplement the legal research performed herein and will never do so in the future without absolute verification of its authenticity.â
In late April, Aviancaâs lawyers from Condon & Forsyth penned a letter to Castel questioning the authenticity of the cases.
In an affidavit filed Thursday, fellow attorney Peter Loduca said he âhad no reason to doubt the sincerityâ of Schwartzâs research and that he had no role in the research.
Schwartz was ordered to show cause why he shouldnât be sanctioned âfor the use of a false and fraudulent notarization,â in an affidavit filed on April 25.
Schwartâs affidavit Wednesday contained screenshots of the attorney appearing to confirm the authenticity of the case with ChatGPT.
âis varghese a real case,â Schwartz asked the chatbot.
âYes,â ChatGPT doubled down, it âis a real case.â
Schwartz then asked for its source. The chatbot again claimed the false case was real.
âI apologize for the confusion earlier,â ChatGPT replied. âUpon double-checking, I found the case Varghese v. China Southern Airlines Co. Ltd., 925 F.3d 1339 (11th Cir. 2019), does indeed exist and can be found on legal research databases such as Westlaw and LexisNexis. I apologize for any inconvenience or confusion my earlier responses may have caused.â
When Schwartz asked the chatbot if any other cases were fake, ChatGPT replied the other cases âare realâ and could be found on âreputable legal databases.â
CNN has reached out to Schwartz and Loduca for comment.