Dutt v. DGK Roofing and Home, L.L.C.

How did the court address the AI-related conduct?

In an entry filed March 28, 2025, the court found that the defendant's failure to answer was not the result of excusable neglect, denied the Civ.R. 60(B) motion, and set a damages hearing for May 1, 2025. The entry imposes no sanction and gives no warning about the citation. After the damages hearing, which Agee attended as defense counsel, the court entered judgment for the plaintiff on May 2, 2025 for a total of $51,638.72; that judgment does not mention the citation. The citation later became the subject of a certified complaint by Ohio's Disciplinary Counsel, Disciplinary Counsel v. Agee, No. 2026-032, charging Prof.Cond.R. 1.1 and 3.3(a)(1). Agee's answer admits using AI to assist in writing the motion, that Blount v. Smith "is a hallucinated case," and that he told the judge in chambers after the damages hearing that he had used AI; it denies any intent to mislead and denies the charged violations. That matter is pending, with no finding.

Why does Dutt v. DGK Roofing and Home, L.L.C. matter for law firms using AI?

Dutt is a default-judgment case in which the court, addressing the defense’s excusable-neglect argument, found that a cited case does not exist. DGK Roofing had not answered the complaint, and its new counsel’s Civ.R. 60(B) motion argued that confusion about its obligations amounted to excusable neglect. Judge Votel called that a “mistaken proposition of law” and noted that the case offered for it, “Blount v. Smith, 119 Ohio App.3d 647 (8th Dist. 1997),” does not exist: the volume and page lead to the second page of Gottfried-Smith v. Gottfried, “a case not involving an analysis of Civ.R. 60(B).”

The entry stops there on the citation. It denies the motion on the merits, finding no excusable neglect, and moves the case to a damages hearing, which ended in a $51,638.72 judgment against the client. Neither document mentions artificial intelligence or imposes any consequence on counsel for the citation.

The later history comes from a separate proceeding. Ohio’s Disciplinary Counsel filed a certified complaint against the lawyer, Ryan Agee (Disciplinary Counsel v. Agee), that quotes this entry and also alleges he made no effort to correct or withdraw the motion afterward. His answer admits that he used AI to help write the motion, that Blount v. Smith is a hallucinated case, and that he told the judge in chambers after the damages hearing that he had used AI; it denies any intent to mislead the court and denies the charged rule violations. That matter is pending and no finding has been made. Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that, here, a one-sentence finding in a county trial court entry was quoted in a disciplinary complaint that also charges counsel with failing to correct the citation afterward.