Ioio v. City of New York

How did the court address the AI-related conduct?

In a summary order, the panel affirmed the district court: claims under the Occupational Safety and Health Act fail because the Act gives employees no private right of action, the constitutional claims fail under circuit precedent upholding COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and the NYCHRL claim fails with them. It held it lacked jurisdiction over the recusal and class-certification rulings, which the notice of appeal did not designate, and found no abuse of discretion in the denial of sanctions against the Appellees. It then stated that "[t]here is evidence, however, that Appellants' counsel used false citations in their opening brief to this Court and purported to represent as a plaintiff in this action someone who expressly asked not to be involved," and referred attorneys Jo Saint-George and Tricia S. Lindsay to the court's Grievance Panel under Local Rule 46.2 "for further investigation, and for consideration of a referral to the Committee on Admissions and Grievances." The order imposes no fine or other sanction itself.

Why does Ioio v. City of New York matter for law firms using AI?

The Second Circuit’s treatment of the citations takes up two sentences and a footnote in an otherwise routine affirmance of a COVID-19 vaccine-mandate dismissal. Addressing the appellants’ argument that a federal civil rights violation is automatically a violation of the New York City Human Rights Law, the panel noted that the appellants had asserted “in conclusory fashion” that two “leading” New York state court decisions supported that point, and then that the citations “do not appear to exist, nor could we locate decisions resembling those citations closely enough to suggest mere typographical errors.” The panel did not name the citations, did not ask how they were produced, and did not mention artificial intelligence.

The consequence is a referral rather than a sanction. The panel found no abuse of discretion in the district court’s refusal to sanction the Appellees, then turned to the appellants’ own counsel: “There is evidence, however, that Appellants’ counsel used false citations in their opening brief to this Court and purported to represent as a plaintiff in this action someone who expressly asked not to be involved.” It referred both Jo Saint-George and Tricia S. Lindsay to the Grievance Panel under Local Rule 46.2 for investigation and possible referral to the Committee on Admissions and Grievances. The order cites Park v. Kim for the Rule 11 duty; see Park v. Kim for that court’s own referral. The order pairs the citation problem with a client-authority problem drawn from the district court record, so the referral does not rest on the citations alone.

The order’s reach shows up in a later case. In Jimenez-Fogarty v. Fogarty, Magistrate Judge Gorenstein of the Southern District of New York quoted this referral paragraph, examined the two flagged citations himself, and treated Lindsay’s filing of the Second Circuit brief after his show-cause orders as evidence of bad faith in the $2,500 Rule 11 sanction he imposed on her there.