Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc. v. Philipson
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, Western Division · W.D. Tenn. · Tennessee bar guidance
Verified April 24, 2026
- Citation
- Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc. v. Philipson, No. 2:23-cv-2186-SHL-cgc, 2025 WL 2625359 (W.D. Tenn. Sept. 11, 2025)
- Decided
- September 11, 2025
Summary
Pro se defendant Dennis Michael Philipson filed a 'Request for Post-Judgment Accounting' in which he argued that, under Tennessee law, 'a judgment debtor is entitled to know the basis of the amounts claimed and to be informed of the identity of all parties asserting entitlement under the judgment,' supporting that proposition by citing First Nat'l Bank of Polk Cnty. v. Goss, 2009 WL 2046052 (Tenn. Ct. App. July 15, 2009). Chief Judge Sheryl H. Lipman found after an exhaustive search that the cited 2009 decision does not exist; a real case with those parties exists only at 912 S.W.2d 147 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1995), dealt with a different issue (timeliness of appeal), and does not contain the quoted language. Philipson had previously represented to the court that he uses AI to generate the content in his filings.
- AI tool:
- Generative AI (unspecified; defendant had acknowledged AI use at prior status conferences)
What sanction did the court impose?
Request for post-judgment accounting denied. No sanctions imposed in this order. The court issued a forward-looking warning: 'if Mr. Philipson files anything else in this matter and those filings contain fictitious case citations or fictitious quotations, the Court will consider imposing sanctions against him, including monetary ones.' The opinion situates W.D. Tenn. among courts that have recognized the 'scourge of fictitious case citations' driven by generative AI and quotes Mata v. Avianca on the harms caused. Because the order was entered sua sponte without a prior Rule 11(c)(3) show-cause order, it could not impose monetary sanctions under Rule 11(c)(5)(B).
Why does Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc. v. Philipson matter for law firms using AI?
Mid-America v. Philipson is Chief Judge Lipman’s first published engagement with AI hallucinations in a case pending before her, and it is structured as a formal warning rather than a sanctions order. The opinion’s extended passage on “the scourge of fictitious case citations” is widely cited in subsequent W.D. Tenn. filings and in other Sixth Circuit cases. Because the pro se defendant had already acknowledged AI use at prior status conferences, the court did not need to infer AI origin from the citation pattern; it could go directly to warning him that one more fictitious citation would trigger monetary sanctions. For Tennessee practitioners and pro se litigants in the Western District, this opinion sets an unambiguous standard: the next filing with a fabricated citation will be sanctionable, and the court will use Rule 11 and its inherent authority to reach the conduct.
Sources
Primary sources
- Specific generative AI tool Philipson used was not identified by name; the court noted only that he had previously represented at status conferences that he uses AI.