AI incident ·
Purportedly AI-Generated False Citations in Arizona Probate Appeal Reportedly Led to Sanctions Against Self-Represented Appellant
On this page 6 sections
In brief
An AI system built by Large Language Model Developers and deployed by Jeffrey Kotchka, Pro Se Litigants and 1 other allegedly harmed Jeffrey Kotchka, Kim Dineen and 5 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 1 report
What happened
Self-represented appellant Jeffrey Kotchka reportedly used purported AI tools to prepare an opening brief in a probate dispute involving his late mother's estate. The Arizona Court of Appeals found six of its eight citations deficient, including two nonexistent cases, and said Kotchka had made no effort to verify them. The court affirmed the appointment of his sister, Kim Dineen, as personal representative, ordering Kotchka to pay her attorney fees attributable to addressing the false citations.
Laws on record for this risk area
No instrument on record yet covers this risk area where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk category and country to the instruments in effect recorded here: a law listed covers the area, which is not a finding that it applies to this incident. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (1)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged deployer
- Jeffrey Kotchka, Pro Se Litigants, Litigants
- Alleged developer
- Large Language Model Developers
- Alleged harmed party
- Jeffrey Kotchka, Kim Dineen, Pro Se Litigants, Judicial Integrity, Epistemic Integrity, Arizona Court Of Appeals, Litigants
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
- Risk domain
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- Risk subdomain
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- Causal entity
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- Intent
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- Timing
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- Harm level
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- Sectors
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- Countries
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Source record: incident #1600 on the AI Incident Database · all 1 report