Incident Tracker / United States (federal)
Ruiz v. Magellan Financial & Insurance Services, No. CV-23-02090-PHX-DWL (D. Ariz.)
·US District Court for the District of Arizona·US-FEDSanctions
After finding two fabricated Ninth Circuit quotations in a fee-opposition brief, the US District Court for the District of Arizona learned that plaintiff's counsel had used ChatGPT and uncovered further invented quotations in three more briefs. Judge Lanza found ethical violations and, per the Charlotin database coding, issued a formal public reprimand rather than a monetary fine.
- Court
- US District Court for the District of Arizona
- Date
- 2026-08-24
- Who used the AI
- Lawyer
- AI tool
- ChatGPT (admitted by counsel)
- Conduct
- Plaintiff's counsel Elizabeth Tate filed three briefs containing AI-generated false direct quotations attributed to Ninth Circuit decisions including Antonakeas, Osazuwa, Saman and Mitchell, and a fourth brief misrepresenting the law. Counsel admitted using ChatGPT after the court's second show-cause order of 28 July 2026 and argued against a State Bar of Arizona referral; the referral outcome is not confirmed.
- Outcome
- Sanctions
- Penalty
- No monetary penalty recorded
- Regulatory outcome
- No separate regulatory disposition recorded
- 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, “Ruiz v. Magellan Financial & Insurance Services, No. CV-23-02090-PHX-DWL (D. Ariz.)”, safelegalai.com/tracker/ruiz-v-magellan-financial (accessed 2026-09-04). Data: CC BY 4.0.