Incident Tracker / United States (federal)
Johnson v. Dunn, No. 2:21-cv-01701-AMM (N.D. Ala.), 792 F. Supp. 3d 1241
·US District Court, Northern District of Alabama (Southern Division)·US-FEDSanctions
In the Northern District of Alabama, Judge Anna M. Manasco publicly reprimanded Butler Snow attorneys Matthew B. Reeves, William J. Cranford and William R. Lunsford for filing two motions containing citations hallucinated by ChatGPT, disqualified them from the case and referred them to the Alabama State Bar; no fine was imposed, the court finding fines insufficient deterrents.
- Court
- US District Court, Northern District of Alabama (Southern Division)
- Date
- 2025-07-23
- Who used the AI
- Lawyer
- AI tool
- ChatGPT
- Conduct
- Butler Snow LLP attorneys Matthew B. Reeves, William J. Cranford and William R. Lunsford, representing former Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jefferson Dunn, filed two motions containing fabricated case citations; Reeves admitted obtaining the citations from ChatGPT without verifying them, and Cranford and Lunsford signed and filed the motions without checking them.
- Outcome
- Sanctions
- Penalty
- No monetary penalty recorded
- Regulatory outcome
- Alabama State Bar (General Counsel) and other applicable licensing authorities: Order served on the bar for further proceedings as appropriate; reciprocal Oklahoma discipline of Reeves is tracked separately (oba-v-reeves) (2025-07-23)
- Status
- Verified against listed sources
- Last checked
- 2026-09-04
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, “Johnson v. Dunn, No. 2:21-cv-01701-AMM (N.D. Ala.), 792 F. Supp. 3d 1241”, safelegalai.com/tracker/johnson-v-dunn (accessed 2026-09-05). Data: CC BY 4.0.