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Mata v. Avianca, 678 F.Supp.3d 443 (S.D.N.Y. 2023), Opinion and Order on Sanctions
In the article 83 excerpts
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The case name was Varghese v. China Southern Airlines Co., Ltd.
A citation leads to somebody else’s case · Supporting sources: S01
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Its citation supplied a volume, a page, a court and a year: 925 F.3d 1339, Eleventh Circuit, 2019.
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Peter LoDuca put it before a federal court in New York on March 1, 2023, in a filing researched and written by his colleague Steven A. Schwartz.
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The address exists; the case named on the filing does not.
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Judge P. Kevin Castel would find that ChatGPT had fabricated the authorities Schwartz supplied.
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The submitted citation and the reporter record identify different decisions.
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Varghese v. China Southern Airlines Co., Ltd., 925 F.3d 1339 (11th Cir. 2019), appeared in the document filed on March 1, 2023.
A citation leads to somebody else’s case · The reference and the record · In the filing · Supporting sources: S01
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The publication reference leads to a different decision; the court found that ChatGPT had fabricated Varghese.
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A citation is a set of directions to a source. Writing plausible directions and locating what they name are different tasks. Here, the reference reached a real page without reaching the promised decision.
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The client was Roberto Mata, who said a serving cart injured his knee during an overnight Avianca flight from El Salvador to New York in August 2019.
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He refiled his lawsuit in February 2022, and Avianca moved it into federal court.
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The airline then asked for dismissal: the Montreal Convention, the treaty governing the claim, allowed two years to sue.
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Schwartz’s first instruction to ChatGPT asked it to argue for that pause; subsequent requests asked for cases and particular holdings.
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Schwartz did the legal work, but he could not practise in this federal court, so LoDuca appeared as the lawyer responsible for the case there.
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By Schwartz’s account, his firm’s Fastcase research account offered limited access to federal decisions when he began this research, and the firm had no Westlaw or LexisNexis subscription.
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He had never used ChatGPT before, he said, and had heard about it through news coverage and his family.
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At the later hearing, he described his mistaken picture of the tool as “like a super search engine”.
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Castel’s account of what happened when Schwartz requested more authorities was shorter: “the chatbot complied by making them up.”
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Avianca’s lawyers went looking for the authorities.
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Their March 15 reply, signed by Bartholomew J. Banino, reported that they were “unable to locate most of the case law cited”.
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Mata’s side did not withdraw the document or explain the missing cases, and the court’s own search also failed to locate several of them.
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Castel asked to see the decisions themselves, warning that failure to supply them would mean dismissal.
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LoDuca sought more time, saying he was on vacation—a statement Castel later found knowingly false.
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What eventually arrived was an affidavit with supposed decision excerpts, drafted and assembled by Schwartz.
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The reply, the court’s orders and the later submission are dated events; the undated chatbot exchanges are separate.
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On March 15, 2023, Avianca’s lawyers reported that they could not locate most of the cited case law.
The missing decisions acquire more text · The requests for the decisions · The reply · Supporting sources: S01
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On April 11 and 12, 2023, the court ordered copies of the decisions, warning that failure to comply would mean dismissal.
The missing decisions acquire more text · The requests for the decisions · The orders · Supporting sources: S01
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On April 25, 2023, LoDuca filed an affidavit with purported decision excerpts that Schwartz had prepared.
The missing decisions acquire more text · The requests for the decisions · The submission · Supporting sources: S01
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The date of Schwartz’s chatbot questions was not established, so those exchanges are not placed on this timeline.
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The added writing brought its own clues. The purported Petersen v. Iran Air decision cited itself as an earlier authority.
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Castel called the supposed Varghese opinion’s legal analysis “gibberish”.
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Even its court docket number, the identifier assigned to a proceeding, belonged to a different case.
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On May 4, Castel ordered LoDuca to explain why citing nonexistent decisions should not lead to a court penalty.
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The record was about to gain a different kind of exhibit: the questions Schwartz had asked on his phone.
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Schwartz’s May 25 filing attached smartphone screenshots and brought the first acknowledgment from the lawyers or their firm that ChatGPT had generated the bogus authorities.
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That is the filing date, not an established date for the conversation: Schwartz’s accounts differed, and the court called them “shifting and contradictory explanations”.
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In the screenshots, Schwartz asked: “Is varghese a real case”.
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ChatGPT replied that it “is a real case”.
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He asked: “Are the other cases you provided fake”.
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“No, the other cases I provided are real and can be found in reputable legal databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw.”
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A reply preserved in Schwartz’s May 25 filing asserted that ChatGPT had double-checked the invented decision.
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The conversation’s date was not established.
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The chatbot’s double-check produced another assurance, not a court decision.
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It also directed him to the services his firm did not subscribe to, according to his testimony.
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The lawyers ultimately acknowledged six invented decisions; the Eleventh Circuit’s clerk separately confirmed that Varghese was not an authentic ruling of that court.
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A citation has a recurring form; the decision it names still needs an independent existence check. The Varghese reference shows why: its publication details looked usable while pointing into somebody else’s case.
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At the June 8 hearing, Schwartz testified that he had entered the Varghese citation but could not locate the decision.
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He described imagining an unpublished opinion, an appeal or a difficulty getting access.
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“I just never thought it could be made up.”
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The court could not settle whether that failed lookup came before the March filing or the April affidavit.
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Either way, Castel found, Schwartz knew before a submission that the complete text could not be found and did not disclose it.
One lawyer supplied excerpts; another reviewed the writing · Supporting sources: S01
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The earlier preparation and review are clearer. Schwartz wrote from the chatbot’s excerpts without possessing a complete copy of any of its generated decisions.
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LoDuca testified that he had been “looking for a flow”; he checked the writing without reviewing any of the authorities it cited.
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The court recorded his reliance on a colleague of more than twenty-five years whose work he believed would be reliable.
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The preparation and review did not include reading the complete decisions cited from ChatGPT.
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Schwartz built the March filing from ChatGPT’s excerpts without having any complete generated decision.
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LoDuca reviewed the writing for style without reviewing any of the cited authorities.
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LoDuca filed the document on March 1, 2023.
One lawyer supplied excerpts; another reviewed the writing · From research to signature · Certification · Supporting sources: S01
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His signature certified a reasonable inquiry into the basis of its legal arguments.
One lawyer supplied excerpts; another reviewed the writing · From research to signature · Certification · Supporting sources: S01
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Schwartz’s separate unsuccessful lookup cannot be securely placed before the March brief rather than the April affidavit.
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That answers what the lawyers checked before the citations reached the judge: the language had been reviewed, but the decisions behind it had not.
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In this account’s reading of the record, the review before signing was a chance to require those decisions, rather than accept the excerpts alone.
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The signature carried a duty of its own. Castel quoted Rule 11: the signer certifies a reasonable inquiry into legal positions, supported by current law or a serious proposal for changing it.
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Having a colleague prepare the document did not remove that responsibility.
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Both lawyers testified under oath and expressed remorse at the June hearing.
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On June 22, 2023, Castel found bad faith through “conscious avoidance and false and misleading statements to the Court”.
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His explanation of conscious avoidance required awareness of a high probability that something was true and a deliberate refusal to confirm it; a foolish mistake alone was insufficient.
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A shared financial penalty applied to the lawyers and their firm.
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The lawyers also had to write to their client and the judges falsely named as authors.
The lawyers’ conduct and the client’s case receive separate rulings · Supporting sources: S01
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On June 22, 2023, the court imposed sanctions for the lawyers’ conduct and separately dismissed Mata’s claim as late.
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On June 22, 2023, Schwartz, LoDuca and their firm received one $5,000 penalty.
The lawyers’ conduct and the client’s case receive separate rulings · Separate grounds, separate consequences · The lawyers’ conduct · Supporting sources: S01
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Each could be held liable for the entire shared amount; the lawyers also had to write to their client and the judges falsely credited as opinion authors.
The lawyers’ conduct and the client’s case receive separate rulings · Separate grounds, separate consequences · The lawyers’ conduct · Supporting sources: S01
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Castel also recognized a legitimate use for reliable AI assistance while maintaining lawyers’ obligation to ensure accurate filings.
The lawyers’ conduct and the client’s case receive separate rulings · Supporting sources: S01
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His account of the broader harms included wasted court and opposing-party resources, and the possibility that a client would lose arguments grounded in authentic decisions.
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The opening citation can be checked against the publication record and the court’s recorded confirmation.
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The filing named Varghese v. China Southern Airlines Co., Ltd. at 925 F.3d 1339.
Follow the reference before sending the draft · Check the reference against the record · Identify the source · Supporting sources: S01
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The court recorded the Eleventh Circuit clerk’s confirmation that Varghese was not an authentic ruling of that court.
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Schwartz testified that he had been unable to find Varghese.
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The ruling leaves open whether that lookup came before the March filing or the April affidavit.
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An unsuccessful search was already part of Schwartz’s account, as were the explanations he offered himself for it.
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Asking the chatbot for reassurance supplied no missing opinion.
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Avianca’s lawyers instead reported the authorities they could not locate.
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You can inspect the mismatch that began this story. The name attached to the reference was Varghese; the decision at volume 925, page 1339 is J.D. v. Azar.
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