Mealey's Artificial Intelligence

  • May 05, 2026

    Attorney Hit With $1,001 Sanction, CLE For Fake Citations

    SAN FRANCISCO — While repeated conduct would be worse, even a single instance of a submission of artificial intelligence-generated fake citations warrants sanctions, a federal judge in California said in imposing a $1,001 sanction, ordering the attorney to attend continuing legal education and directing him to distribute the ruling and various associated documents among employees of the firm.

  • May 05, 2026

    Oregon Panel Awards $8,044 In Attorney Fees For Responding To Fake Cites

    PORTLAND, Ore. — While the court cannot grant a party the time it spent responding to an opening appellant brief containing six fake citations, it can compensate the party for the time, an Oregon Court of Appeals panel said in awarding more than $8,000 in attorney fees to the respondent.

  • May 05, 2026

    Attorneys Weigh In On Work Product, Attorney-Client Privilege In The AI Age

    Three attorneys told Mealey’s Publication that artificial intelligence is creating new questions about work product and attorney-client privilege protections, and all three indicated that their firms are taking steps to address the issues and create a playbook for both attorneys and clients in the wake of recent rulings.

  • May 05, 2026

    Pro Se AI Briefing Errors Met With Varying Outcomes In Trio Of State Cases

    Three state appellate courts confronted artificial intelligence-introduced errors in pro se parties’ filings, taking steps as varied as dismissing the action, awarding thousands of dollars in attorney fees as a sanction and issuing a simple warning that even parties representing themselves are obligated to ensure the accuracy of what they file with the court.

  • April 23, 2026

    COMMENTARY: Comparing US And EU AI Legislation: Divergent Regulatory Approaches And Practical Governance Implications

    By Janine Anthony Bowen and Nils Lolfing

  • May 05, 2026

    COMMENTARY: EU Digital Omnibus: Opportunities And Risks From Regulatory Convergence

    By Lorenzo Grillo

  • May 01, 2026

    Attempts To Hide AI Use Show Bad Faith, Judge Says In Imposing Sanctions

    LOS ANGELES — An attorney’s attempt to bury the fact that his use of artificial intelligence was behind errors in his briefing and his failure to disclose that it happened not once but three times demonstrate bad faith and warrant $2,500 in sanctions and a requirement that he file a declaration in every case in which he appears, a federal judge in California said.

  • April 30, 2026

    PFAS Protective Order Sets Protocol For Confidentiality, Use Of Generative AI

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A federal magistrate judge in Connecticut has approved a modified protective order outlining broad topics related to the handling of confidential information and the use of generative AI in discovery in an injury lawsuit related to exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances(PFAS) brought by firefighters, firefighter unions and parties that purchased gear for firefighters against the makers of PFAS.  Among other things, the order establishes that confidential material that is uploaded into a generative AI tool should not be hosted on public cloud servers or used to train public AI models.

  • April 30, 2026

    Families: OpenAI, Sam Altman Ignored Warnings Leading Up To School Shooting

    SAN FRANCISCO — Samuel Altman and various OpenAI entities took no action even as employees warned them that a ChatGPT user posed a real-world threat.  It was a prescient warning brought to life when just months later the user allegedly killed eight people as part of a school shooting in British Columbia, families claim in a series of seven complaints filed April 29 alleging negligence, strict product liability and violation of the California unfair competition law (UCL).

  • April 30, 2026

    Judge Reprimands Former U.S. Attorney For ‘Particularly Odious’ AI Conduct

    RALEIGH, N.C. — A former U.S. attorney’s artificial intelligence-generated errors are “particularly odious” given his position at the time and warrant harsh sanctions, but given the serious repercussions and the tatters in which the attorney now finds his reputation, a formal reprimand suffices, a federal judge in North Carolina said.

  • April 29, 2026

    Judge: Investor Didn’t Suitably Plead Falsity, Scienter Against AI Company

    NEWARK, N.J. — A federal judge in New Jersey granted a data engineering company’s and its current and former executives’ motions to dismiss an investor’s putative class action alleging they violated federal securities laws by providing misstatements about the company’s artificial intelligence capabilities; the judge found that the investor failed to sufficiently plead falsity, scienter or loss causation.

  • April 29, 2026

    Workday, AI Hiring Plaintiffs Dispute Need For Immediate Appeal

    SAN FRANCISCO — Workday Inc. and thousands of hiring-discrimination plaintiffs have wrapped up briefing before a federal judge in California over the need for interlocutory review of the viability of a disparate-impact claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 while a motion to dismiss an amended complaint remains pending.

  • April 27, 2026

    2 Fraud Claims Dropped From Upcoming Musk-OpenAI Trial

    SAN FRANCISCO — As Elon Musk heads to trial on his claims that OpenAI Inc. entities chose greed over their original altruistic purpose, a federal judge in California on April 24 allowed him to dismiss claims for fraud and constructive fraud, leaving breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment claims to go before a jury.

  • April 24, 2026

    Judge: Udio AI Music Platform Must Face Technological Circumvention Claims

    NEW YORK — Music companies successfully allege that YouTube imposed at least some technological measures designed to protect content posted on the site, though the exact nature of the restrictions will need to determined on a more full record, a federal judge in New York said in denying a motion to dismiss an artificial intelligence circumvention case.

  • April 23, 2026

    Judge: Mosaic, Databricks Will Face Direct Copyright Claims In AI Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — Direct copyright infringement claims in an artificial intelligence case will proceed after a federal judge in California concluded that plaintiffs adequately tied the copying of their protected works to MosaicML Inc.’s and Databricks Inc.’s training of large language models (LLMs).

  • April 23, 2026

    Florida Investigating ChatGPT’s Possible Role In University Shooting

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida has subpoenaed OpenAI entities seeking information related to training materials involving user threats as part of an investigation into any potential criminal role ChatGPT played in a recent shooting, according to a press release from the state attorney general’s office.

  • April 22, 2026

    Supreme Court Denies Review In AI Casino Hotel Pricing Antitrust Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court declined to step into an antitrust case involving artificial intelligence-based hotel pricing, leaving in place a ruling that the casinos’ independent decisions to employ the same algorithmic tool did not constitute a violation even if it led to higher prices.

  • April 21, 2026

    Lawyer Hit With $1,500 Sanction Over Fabricated Cites

    ALBANY, N.Y. — A federal judge in New York sanctioned an attorney $1,500 and imposed a continuing legal education requirement after finding that his failure to ensure that a brief he filed didn’t include fabricated cites constituted bad faith.

  • April 21, 2026

    Perplexity Says ‘Answers Engine’ Doesn’t Trample Trademark, Copyrights

    NEW YORK — A quartet of news providers has not shown that automated outputs of an “answers engine” powered by artificial intelligence and retrieval-augmented generation constitute copyright violations or that using tags identifying the source material violates trademark rights, Perplexity AI Inc. tells a federal judge in New York.

  • April 21, 2026

    Lowes Wants AI Sanction Order Expanded To Entire Firm, Citing ‘Systemic Issues’

    ALEXANDRIA, La. — A home improvement store asked a court to expand its order to show cause why two attorneys should not be sanctioned for misciting material in a brief, saying the problem appears to go further and that a review shows that the entire firm exhibits an “unchecked habit of misstating law, misquoting, and misleading multiple courts.”  One of the attorneys took responsibility for the errors in his response, saying he took steps to prevent future mistakes and that the court should ignore unsolicited input from the defendant.

  • April 16, 2026

    Colorado River Doesn’t Require Abstention In OpenAI Murder-Suicide Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal suit involving California unfair competition law (UCL), negligence and wrongful death claims against OpenAI entities after a murder-suicide will proceed after a federal judge in California concluded that a similar state court suit does not involve the type of parallel litigation required for abstention.

  • April 15, 2026

    Preliminary Injunction Granted In Trade Secrets Case Between 2 AI Data Platforms

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted a preliminary injunction in a trade secrets misappropriation case involving two companies that provide data labeling and other services to artificial intelligence (AI) companies and enjoined the defendants from using, disclosing or destroying any confidential information and data allegedly obtained from the plaintiff when it interviewed and eventually hired one of its employees.

  • April 10, 2026

    XAI Sues Colorado AG To Halt State’s AI Act, Alleges It Stifles Free Speech

    DENVER — Colorado’s Artificial Intelligence Act (CAIA), set to take effect in June, must be enjoined as it is “an effort to embed the State’s preferred views into the very fabric of AI systems” rather than “a prohibition on so-called ‘algorithmic discrimination’” as the state has alleged, X.AI LLC (xAI), the developer of Grok, claims in an April 9 complaint filed against the Colorado attorney general.

  • April 10, 2026

    Sanctions Imposed For Canceled Deposition But Not For Fake Case Citation

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Because the plaintiff’s attorney in an employment discrimination case promptly corrected an “erroneously submitted” opposition brief and assured the court that her firm has taken action to prevent such filings in the future, a federal magistrate judge in California denied the employer’s motion to sanction the attorney for filing a brief containing what it claimed was a hallucinated case citation generated by artificial intelligence; the magistrate judge did, however, sanction the plaintiff and attorney for the last-minute cancellation of a scheduled deposition.

  • April 10, 2026

    AI Hiring Startup Hit With Data Breach Class Suit After Supply Chain Attack

    SAN FRANCISCO — A New York man filed a class complaint in a federal court in California seeking monetary and equitable relief for a putative class of former contract workers and customers of a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence hiring startup whose data was allegedly stolen due to a supply chain attack.