Five Kansas attorneys face sanctions for ChatGPT-fabricated court citations

Jan 2026

Five attorneys who signed a legal brief in McPhaul v. College Hills submitted fabricated case citations hallucinated by ChatGPT to a federal court in Kansas. The judge issued an order requiring them to explain why they should not be sanctioned, with multiple defects attributed to AI in the documents.

Incident Details

Perpetrator:AI chatbot

Severity:Facepalm

Blast Radius:Five attorneys and their client in federal court

Tech Stack

ChatGPT

References

CJ Online: ChatGPT made up AI hallucinations used by attorneys in Kansas court ↗CJ Online: AI hallucinated made-up citations, Kansas judge may sanction lawyers ↗Justia: McPhaul v. College Hills Opco court filing ↗