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Incident Tracker / Brazil

Processo nº 1001467-35.2024.5.02.0467 (TRT-2, 4ª Turma)

·Tribunal Regional do Trabalho da 2ª Região (TRT-2), São Paulo (4ª Turma)·BRSanctions

In Brazil, the TRT-2 labour appeals court in São Paulo sanctioned a worker's lawyer for bad-faith litigation after an appeal cited AI-fabricated jurisprudence falsely attributed to Superior Labour Court ministers and a non-existent judge. The court imposed a 5% penalty on the claim value, holding counsel — not the AI — responsible for verifying citations.

Court
Tribunal Regional do Trabalho da 2ª Região (TRT-2), São Paulo (4ª Turma)
Date
2025-09-08
Who used the AI
Not recorded
AI tool
Not identified in the record
Conduct
A claimant's lawyer filed a labour appeal containing fabricated 'jurisprudence' — invented case summaries attributed to ministers of the Superior Labour Court (TST) and to a non-existent TRT-3 judge. The court confirmed none of the cited rulings existed; when questioned, counsel blamed the AI tool, which the rapporteur rejected. The court imposed a bad-faith litigation penalty (litigância de má-fé) of 5% of the claim value under art. 793-C of the CLT, holding counsel — not the AI — responsible for verifying citations. No OAB disciplinary action is recorded.
Outcome
Sanctions
Penalty
No monetary penalty recorded
Regulatory outcome
No separate regulatory disposition recorded
Status
Verified against listed sources
Last checked
2026-09-04

What was fabricated or misused

  • ementas inventadas atribuídas a Ministros do TST — the acórdão did not list the rulings
  • julgado inventado atribuído a nome que não consta como magistrado do TRT da 3.ª Região — the acórdão did not name the judge

What the court said

“Caracteriza litigância de má-fé a inserção, nas razões recursais, de ementas inventadas e atribuídas a um julgador inexistente e também a Ministros do TST, para ajustar-se à argumentação recursal.”
Tribunal Regional do Trabalho da 2ª Região (TRT-2), São Paulo (4ª Turma), p. 1
“Não é minimamente razoável atribuir a culpa à inteligência artificial quando esta depende de comandos de seres humanos.”
Tribunal Regional do Trabalho da 2ª Região (TRT-2), São Paulo (4ª Turma), p. 2
“A utilização de ferramentas de inteligência artificial não exime a parte de sua responsabilidade pelo conteúdo apresentado.”
Tribunal Regional do Trabalho da 2ª Região (TRT-2), São Paulo (4ª Turma), p. 2
“aplicando à reclamante multa por litigância de má-fé à razão de 5% sobre o valor atribuído à causa.”
Tribunal Regional do Trabalho da 2ª Região (TRT-2), São Paulo (4ª Turma), p. 6

Timeline

  1. Acórdão recorded respondent's objection that claimant cited non-existent ementas in the appeal.
  2. Rapporteur stated official tribunal searches also failed to locate the cited decisions.
  3. Fourth Panel denied the appeal and imposed a 5% bad-faith penalty.

Why this case matters

The TRT-2 record adds a Brazilian labour-court example to the citation-hallucination set. Unlike Mata v Avianca, the sanction was framed as litigância de má-fé under the CLT rather than Rule 11, and it was assessed at 5% of the claim value. The judgment is also direct about attribution: the court rejected the attempt to blame the tool because the filing was signed and used by a lawyer. No OAB outcome is recorded, so the public consequence remains the case sanction.

Practice note

For Brazilian labour appeals, treat every ementa as a cited authority. Before filing, counsel should verify the process number, court, judge or minister, and text against official TRT/TST sources. If an AI tool produced a case summary, do not use it unless the actual decision can be opened and the quoted proposition appears there.

Primary sources for this incident

Related regulation records for this incident

No related regulation record has been linked to this incident yet.

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Cite this record

SafeLegalAI Global Legal AI Incident Tracker, “Processo nº 1001467-35.2024.5.02.0467 (TRT-2, 4ª Turma)”, safelegalai.com/tracker/brazil-trt2-ma-fe (accessed 2026-09-16). Data: CC BY 4.0.

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