Incident Tracker / United States (federal)
Akerlund v. Atlas Air, Inc. (Estate of Caviness v. Atlas Air), No. 24-11033 (11th Cir.)
·US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit·US-FEDRegulatory referral
In a published opinion affirming dismissal of pilots' vaccine-mandate claims, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit condemned attorney Anthony Sabatini for briefs replete with fake and hallucinated citations, including replacement citations that were themselves fabricated, and referred him to the court's Committee on Lawyer Qualifications and Conduct.
- Court
- US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
- Date
- 2026-07-10
- Who used the AI
- Lawyer
- AI tool
- Not identified in the record
- Conduct
- Attorney Anthony F. Sabatini's opening brief in an appeal over airline pilots' vaccine-mandate claims relied on at least eight hallucinated cases. The corrected citations he supplied after the defendants objected were also hallucinated, and the court found he had not been candid with it.
- Outcome
- Regulatory referral
- Penalty
- No monetary penalty recorded
- Regulatory outcome
- Eleventh Circuit Committee on Lawyer Qualifications and Conduct: The Chief Judge referred counsel to the Committee under Addendum Eight, Rule 2(C) of the court's rules. No disposition on record. (2026-07-10)
- Status
- Verified against listed sources
- Last checked
- 2026-09-03
Primary sources for this incident
Related regulation records for this incident
No related regulation record has been linked to this incident yet.
Cite this record
SafeLegalAI Global Legal AI Incident Tracker, “Akerlund v. Atlas Air, Inc. (Estate of Caviness v. Atlas Air), No. 24-11033 (11th Cir.)”, safelegalai.com/tracker/akerlund-v-atlas-air (accessed 2026-09-04). Data: CC BY 4.0.