Lafayette v. Abrami

What sanction did the court impose?

Judge Battles entered an Order on Attorneys Fees and Sanctions on December 18, 2025 awarding defendants $7,360.96 ($7,346.56 in attorneys' fees plus $14.40 in costs) under Vermont's anti-SLAPP statute, applying California's approach to anti-SLAPP fee-shifting that limits recovery to time spent on the special motion to strike rather than the entire action. The court further imposed a Rule 11 pre-filing injunction: "Plaintiff is enjoined from filing any pleading, complaint, motion, letter or other document in the Lamoille Civil Division unless represented by an attorney, or if unable [to] obtain an attorney, unless plaintiff first obtains permission for the proposed filing from the assigned superior court judge." Permission requests are capped at five pages and must explain plaintiff's inability to obtain counsel along with the relevant facts and legal basis. The court applied the five-factor Fox v. Fox analysis, finding plaintiff's "prolific history of litigation, including vexatious, harassing and duplicative lawsuits" and his "bad faith" conduct (including harassing communications to defense counsel) warranted the injunction. The court rejected the TBI / AI-reliance defense as contradicted by the harassment evidence and expressly found that "no other sanction besides a pre-filing injunction would be adequate."

Why does Lafayette v. Abrami matter for law firms using AI?

Lafayette v. Abrami is the Vermont Superior Court’s most consequential published AI-fabrication order to date and a clean illustration of how a state trial court applies the Fox v. Fox sanctions ladder to repeat pro se conduct. Judge Battles’s December 18, 2025 Order on Attorneys Fees and Sanctions does two things at once: it awards $7,360.96 in anti-SLAPP fees under 12 V.S.A. § 1041 limited to the special-motion-to-strike work, and it imposes a Rule 11 pre-filing injunction restricting Mr. Lafayette to attorney-represented filings in the Lamoille Civil Division.

Three doctrinal points are notable. First, the court rejected the AI-reliance mitigation defense outright. Mr. Lafayette had argued that his traumatic brain injury and his reliance on “artificial intelligence software” should reduce the sanction. The court treated those circumstances as aggravating rather than mitigating: he had been warned by at least one prior court that AI fabrications would draw sanctions, he promised to stop, and he persisted. The “I didn’t know AI hallucinated” defense, which Massachusetts Justice Davis flagged as foreclosed in Smith v. Farwell (Mass. Super. Feb. 12, 2024), is now likewise foreclosed in Vermont. Second, the order’s anti-SLAPP fee-shifting analysis adopts the California approach (recovery limited to special-motion-to-strike time, not whole-action time), citing comparator practice rather than expanding the recovery scope. This is a significant calibration choice for Vermont anti-SLAPP practice. Third, the pre-filing injunction is calibrated to permit attorney-represented filings without restriction; it targets only Mr. Lafayette’s pro se conduct, preserving his right to access the courts through counsel. That calibration is the standard Fox v. Fox mode and should survive any First Amendment challenge.

For Vermont firms representing media defendants or any defendant facing repeat-litigant pro se claims, the operational implication is twofold. First, the anti-SLAPP statute provides a fee-shifting mechanism that aligns with the California cap, billing entries should be coded discretely to time on the special motion to strike to avoid disallowance under the Lafayette method. Second, when a pro se opposing party has been previously warned about AI fabrication and persists, the pre-filing injunction is an available remedy in Vermont state practice, not just a federal-court tool. The Fox v. Fox five-factor analysis the court applied is well-established Vermont law; the AI-fabrication overlay does not require any new doctrine, only a record of prior warnings the litigant disregarded.