Smith v. Athena Construction Group, Inc.
U.S. District Court, District of Columbia · D.D.C. · District of Columbia bar guidance
Verified April 26, 2026
- Citation
- Smith v. Athena Construction Group, Inc., No. 1:18-cv-02080 (APM) (D.D.C. Oct. 3, 2025)
- Decided
- October 3, 2025
Summary
Relator's counsel Glenn Ellis, a Philadelphia solo practitioner, filed an opposition to Athena Construction's motion to continue trial that contained one fully fabricated citation, three nonexistent quotations, and multiple mischaracterizations of authority, including a misuse of Simpkins for the proposition that courts routinely reject motions resting on attorney argument. Ellis told the court he had relied on Lexis+ AI to identify supporting authorities and used Grammarly and ProWritingAid in drafting, without independently verifying any of the cited cases. Judge Amit P. Mehta found the conduct "singularly egregious" and "reckless," noting that all nine cited authorities in the brief were erroneous in some respect.
- AI tool:
- Lexis+ AI (with Grammarly and ProWritingAid also used by counsel)
What sanction did the court impose?
Judge Mehta granted Ellis's motion to withdraw and pro hac vice withdrawal, imposed sanctions requiring Ellis personally to pay Athena's attorneys' fees and costs incurred in drafting the underlying motion to continue and the reply brief (with the dollar amount to be set after Athena filed an invoice), and ordered Ellis to supplement his self-report to the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board with a copy of the sanctions order. A follow-on order on October 10, 2025 entered the fee award; an October 15, 2025 minute order clarified that payment was due to Athena by November 14, 2025.
Why does Smith v. Athena Construction Group, Inc. matter for law firms using AI?
Smith v. Athena is notable for two reasons that matter to managing partners. First, the AI tool at the center of the sanction was a mainstream legal research product (Lexis+ AI) marketed to lawyers, not a consumer chatbot, underscoring that vendor branding does not relieve the verification duty. Second, Judge Mehta layered the financial sanction with a mandatory supplement to counsel’s self-report to the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board, turning a single filing error into a docketed disciplinary record that will follow the attorney across jurisdictions.
Sources
Primary 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.
- Final dollar amount of the fee award entered in the October 10, 2025 follow-on order (the October 3 order imposed sanctions but deferred the amount pending Athena's fee invoice; the precise total was not located in primary sources during verification).