A wild story out of the Alabama Supreme Court came about when a denied appeal also lead to a lawyer being sanctioned after it came about that he submitted court filings which cited fake cases generated by artificial intelligence.

In the ruling, the court warned that failure to verify AI-assisted information can lead to not only the loss of a case, but professional punishment as well.

The court came to a divided decision, but ultimately the appeal was ruled “frivolous” on account of the dozens of cases and quotations which did not exist, and the attorney — W. Perry Hall — was sanctioned for conduct determined to be “egregious.”

“This court — indeed, every court within our judicial system — must be able to trust the submissions of attorneys who practice before it,” Justice Chris McCool wrote. “Otherwise, the precious resources available to us will eventually be strained to the breaking point.”

Perhaps the most jaw-dropping detail came in Justice Greg Cook’s special concurrence.

Cook pointed out that in the same footnote where Hall apologized for citing AI-hallucinated authorities and promised “the mistake will not recur,” he proceeded to cite two more cases that did not exist. In the very next sentence.

“It is simply hard to imagine how this could occur absent, perhaps, using AI to craft the apology for having used AI,” Cook wrote.

The fabricated citations were not subtle errors. Hall’s briefs sent the court chasing rulings that, when checked, turned out to be entirely unrelated cases from across the country. A purported Nebraska Court of Appeals case turned out to be an Iowa criminal matter.

A quote attributed to an Illinois trust case traced back to a withdrawn Indiana ruling, with the pinpoint citation pointing to a Massachusetts tax case. One citation styled as “Gilbert v. Murdock” matched only an 1802 North Carolina case concerning enslaved people. Another fake citation pointed to a Louisiana ruling about a damaged automobile.

Hall apologized and informed the court that he had self-reported on himself to an Alabama organization which is able to discipline attorneys in scenarios where they do not follow professional conduct rules. The case related to a couple who was appealing an order in a dispute over a family trust.

Hall was ultimately barred from filing future documents in the Supreme Court without another licensed lawyer signing for them.