Incident Tracker / United States (state)
Scott v. Illinois Human Rights Commission, 2026 IL App (1st) 251462
·Appellate Court of Illinois, First District·US-STATEFine
The Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, affirmed dismissal of a Starbucks employee's discrimination charge and sanctioned her lawyer USD 15,000 under Supreme Court Rule 375 for ten AI-hallucinated statutory quotations and case citations. The court set a USD 1,500 per-citation rate, saying fines must rise until they deter, and referred counsel for discipline.
- Court
- Appellate Court of Illinois, First District
- Date
- 2026-07-28
- Who used the AI
- Lawyer
- AI tool
- ChatGPT (per counsel's response to the court)
- Conduct
- Attorney Mason Cole filed opening and reply briefs containing ten false items: four fabricated statutory quotations, one nonexistent case and five real cases misdescribed, plus an improper statement of facts. Counsel attributed the errors to a ChatGPT corporate subscription.
- Outcome
- Fine
- Penalty
- US$15,000
- Regulatory outcome
- Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission: At paragraph 82 the court directed the clerk of the Appellate Court, First District, to send a copy of the opinion to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (opinion read 3 Sep 2026). No ARDC disposition yet on record. (2026-07-28)
- 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, “Scott v. Illinois Human Rights Commission, 2026 IL App (1st) 251462”, safelegalai.com/tracker/scott-v-illinois-human-rights-commission (accessed 2026-09-04). Data: CC BY 4.0.