Kohls v. Ellison
U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota · D. Minn. · Minnesota bar guidance
Verified May 5, 2026
- Citation
- Kohls v. Ellison, No. 24-cv-3754 (LMP/DLM), 2025 WL 66514 (D. Minn. Jan. 10, 2025), aff'd (8th Cir. Feb. 9, 2026)
- Decided
- January 10, 2025
Summary
The Minnesota Attorney General's office submitted an expert declaration by Stanford Professor Jeff Hancock in support of Minnesota's deepfake statute. The declaration contained fabricated citations to nonexistent academic articles generated by AI. Judge Laura M. Provinzino struck the entire declaration as unreliable and held that an "inquiry reasonable under the circumstances" under Rule 11 may now require attorneys to ask expert witnesses whether they used AI in drafting declarations and what they did to verify AI-generated content.
- AI tool:
- AI (via expert declaration from Prof. Jeff Hancock)
What sanction did the court impose?
Expert declaration struck in its entirety. No monetary sanctions imposed, but exclusion of the expert testimony was itself a significant consequence. Affirmed by the Eighth Circuit on February 9, 2026. The decision extended the attorney supervision duty to expert witnesses: counsel now bear a 'personal, nondelegable responsibility' to validate all filed documents, including expert declarations, and must affirmatively inquire about AI use.
Why does Kohls v. Ellison matter for law firms using AI?
Kohls v. Ellison extends the AI verification duty beyond attorney-drafted work product to expert declarations. Before Kohls, the sanctions cases addressed attorneys who themselves used AI. Here the attorneys relied on a credentialed expert. The court held that reliance is not enough: counsel must ask. For Minnesota litigators, and for anyone practicing in federal court, the practical takeaway is that expert-engagement workflows now need an AI-use inquiry and a documented verification step.