Riddle Aggregates, LLC, Ornstein-Schuler, LLC, Tax Matters Partner v. Commissioner
United States Tax Court · U.S. Tax Ct.
Verified April 26, 2026
- Citation
- Riddle Aggregates, LLC v. Commissioner, No. 31104-21, Tr. Vol. 3 at 527-618 (U.S. Tax Ct. Mar. 18, 2026) (Kerrigan, J.)
- Decided
- March 18, 2026
Summary
IRS retained appraiser Leslie Sellers (Sellers Realty, LLC) submitted two rebuttal expert reports critiquing taxpayer's appraisers Catlett and Shea in a conservation easement valuation trial before Judge Kathleen Kerrigan. On voir dire, petitioner's counsel Daniel Rosen walked Sellers through block quotes purportedly drawn from the Uniform Appraisal Standards for Federal Land Acquisitions ("Yellow Book") and the Appraisal Institute's Appraisal of Real Estate; multiple quotations did not appear on the cited pages, cited nonexistent sections (e.g., Yellow Book section 4.4.2.1.1), or were attributed to pages whose actual headings were unrelated topics like "framing, insulation, and ventilation." Sellers had filed errata sheets correcting 20 items in one report and 4 in the other, but additional uncorrected fabrications surfaced live during voir dire. Sellers acknowledged using Grammarly, ChatGPT, and Gemini, holding paid accounts for the latter two, and speculated Grammarly may have rewritten quoted material.
- AI tool:
- Grammarly, ChatGPT, Gemini
What sanction did the court impose?
No monetary sanction. After the court expressed "grave concerns" that the reports were "full of mistakes" beyond typographical errors and signaled it would address reliability in any opinion if admitted, IRS counsel Christopher Pavilonis withdrew both rebuttal reports (Exhibits 9006-R and 9007-R) rather than have them admitted as Sellers's direct testimony. The court invoked Rule 143(g)(2) and referenced Judge Buch's October 2024 order in docket 10795-22 warning about AI in pretrial briefs. Sellers was excused; no further direct examination was permitted.
Why does Riddle Aggregates, LLC, Ornstein-Schuler, LLC, Tax Matters Partner v. Commissioner matter for law firms using AI?
Riddle is the first reported instance of AI-tainted expert testimony being withdrawn mid-trial in the U.S. Tax Court, and it lands on the rebuttal side: it was the government’s expert, not the taxpayer’s, whose reports collapsed under cross. For a managing partner whose firm hires outside experts, the case is a reminder that vendor-branded “AI assistance” (Grammarly here, plus ChatGPT and Gemini for research) can silently rewrite what a credentialed expert intended as a verbatim block quote, and that errata sheets filed weeks before trial will not save a report when opposing counsel finds additional fabrications live on voir dire. The expert’s 50-year career and Appraisal Institute leadership did not insulate the report; if anything, Judge Kerrigan flagged that experience as a reason the failures were harder to excuse.
Sources
Further reading
Source PDF is a Westlaw printout mirrored from the Damien Charlotin hallucination database. We are working to add the underlying court docket (PACER, CourtListener, or court website) as a second source.
- No written order or opinion has issued; the only available record is the trial transcript hosted via Charlotin's mirror. CourtListener docket for 31104-21 was not retrieved during verification.