Judge fines MyPillow lawyers $3000 for AI‑filled, error‑ridden court filing

A federal judge has fined two lawyers $3,000 each for filing court documents filled with errors that appeared to come from artificial intelligence, according to theNew York Times, which first reported on the sanctions issued Monday. Judge Nina Wang of the US District Court in Colorado said the lawyers representing MyPillow founder Mike Lindell had filed a court brief in February containing nearly 30 bad citations.

The document misquoted court cases, wrongly explained laws, and most seriously cited cases that do not exist. The judge said the lawyers, Christopher Kachouroff and Jennifer DeMaster, could not explain how such mistakes happened without using AI or being very careless. The errors appeared in a defamation case where Eric Coomer, a former Dominion Voting Systems employee, sued Lindell for spreading false claims about the 2020 election. The New York Times noted that Judge Wang called the fine the least severe punishment needed to stop and punish the lawyers for their mistakes.

When Judge Wang questioned lawyer Christopher Kachouroff about the errors during a hearing in April, he admitted they had used artificial intelligence on the document, as reported byUSA Today in their coverage of the court ruling. Kachouroff told the judge that he first made an outline and wrote a draft, then ran it through AI. When asked if he double-checked the citations after using AI, Kachouroff said he personally did not check them and took responsibility for not verifying the information. Later, Kachouroff claimed he was surprised by the judge's questions and said they had not relied on AI for legal research.

He explained that his co-counsel DeMaster had mistakenly filed a draft version instead of their final, carefully checked document while he was on vacation in Mexico with limited internet access. USA Today reported that DeMaster apologized to the court, saying she accidentally uploaded the wrong version and did not mean to mislead anyone.

Read more on Chicago Star:

• ChatGPT's video generation outpaces Midjourney—But can it survive the outages?

• Chicago Star kicks off summer in style at Mariano’s Lakeshore East

• Whale, that’s a first! Shedd Aquarium makes waves with historic beluga surgery

• Flooding ravages Texas as rescue teams hit a wall—here’s how Chicagoans can help

The judge was not convinced by the lawyers' explanations and found their statements contradictory, according to CBS Austin's report on the sanctions. Judge Wang wrote that she found no joy in punishing lawyers but felt the fine was necessary to prevent similar problems in the future. The case involved Mike Lindell, who had been sued by Eric Coomer after calling him a traitor and accusing him of stealing the 2020 election on his online platform.

Last month, a jury ruled in favor of Coomer and ordered Lindell to pay $2.3 million in damages, far less than the $62.7 million Coomer had originally requested. CBS Austin noted that this case highlights growing concerns about lawyers using AI tools without properly checking their work. The sanctions serve as a warning to other lawyers about the importance of verifying all information before filing court documents, especially when artificial intelligence tools are involved in the preparation process.