Corst v. Mushailov

How did the court address the AI-related conduct?

Judge Rena Malik granted the defendants' motion and directed the clerk to enter judgment dismissing the complaint, holding that personal jurisdiction did not lie because the service address was not the defendants' dwelling or usual place of abode. On the citations, the court said it had stated on the record that it was "inclined to disregard plaintiff's papers in their entirety for lack of any proper legal support for the arguments made." Two days after argument, counsel emailed a letter to chambers and opposing counsel apologizing for the submission; the decision says the letter is annexed to it. "In light of the correspondence," the court considered plaintiff's opposition and its arguments "but will rely only on defendants' legal authority as well as the Court's own research." In a footnote the court accepted counsel's apology, noting that he "conceded to the lack of proper review of papers prepared by another person in his office and stated that he will implement additional internal review procedures for filing papers with the Court." The court imposed no sanction, issued no warning, and made no referral.

Why does Corst v. Mushailov matter for law firms using AI?

Corst is a $19,800 rent-arrears case in which the citation problem was taken up at oral argument and resolved by an apology rather than a sanction. Plaintiff’s counsel opposed a CPLR 3211 (a) (8) motion by arguing that the defendants had waived their objection to personal jurisdiction. Judge Malik found that all but one of the cases cited in that opposition were defective: three citations led to entirely different matters (Epes v Healey, Orange Steel Erectors v Newburgh Steel Products Inc., and People v Rojas), and a fourth, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v Estwick, is a real case that “does not stand for the proposition stated.” The court also searched for the named cases and could not find a 1996 Fourth Department “Knapp” decision or a 2014 Second Department “Negron” decision.

The court did not find that AI was used. Its footnote says only that the “‘hallucinated’ cases appear to have been generated with the use of an artificial intelligence program,” and notes that counsel’s letter did not specifically acknowledge that. At argument, counsel attributed the problem to “a typo” or an “error” and asked to substitute corrected papers; the court refused and said on the record it was inclined to disregard the opposition entirely. Two days later counsel emailed an apology letter to chambers and opposing counsel. In accepting the apology, the court’s footnote says counsel conceded a lack of proper review of papers prepared by another person in his office and stated he would implement additional internal review procedures.

The court accepted the apology and took a middle course: it considered the opposition and its arguments, but relied only on the defendants’ authority and its own research, and then granted the motion on the merits because the defendants had moved out of the service address months before process was delivered there. Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that here the court expressly considered the opposition “[i]n light of the correspondence,” and that no sanction, warning, or referral followed.