Thomas v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue
U.S. Tax Court · T.C.
Verified April 26, 2026
- Citation
- Thomas v. Commissioner, No. 10795-22 (U.S. Tax Ct. Oct. 23, 2024) (Buch, J.) (order)
- Decided
- October 23, 2024
Summary
In a small-dollar deficiency case (less than $10,000 at issue across 2016 and 2017 tax years), petitioner's counsel filed a Pretrial Memorandum citing three nonexistent or miscited Tax Court authorities: Schluter v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 1998-269; Meneguzzo v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 1969-15; and Gagliardi v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2011-194. None of the cases existed at the cited reporters, and none stood for the propositions cited. At a hearing, counsel said a new paralegal had drafted the memorandum and counsel had not reviewed it; counsel denied personally using AI but conceded she did not know whether the paralegal had. Judge Ronald L. Buch held that the filing violated Tax Court Rule 33's signature certification (read, well grounded in fact, warranted by existing law) and observed the document had "the hallmarks of a document prepared with the assistance of a large language model."
- AI tool:
- Implied (large language model suspected; counsel denied knowing use, but court found Pretrial Memorandum bore the hallmarks of LLM output)
- Sanction amount:
- None (symbolic sanction; Pretrial Memorandum deemed stricken)
What sanction did the court impose?
Pretrial Memorandum (doc. no. 28) deemed stricken as a symbolic sanction under Tax Court Rule 33(b). Court declined to impose monetary sanctions, citing the small dollar amount in controversy, the substantive accuracy of the legal rules stated (even where citations were fabricated), and counsel's role in serving an underserved petitioner who fell into an economic 'no man's land' between low-income clinic eligibility and ability to pay private counsel. Outcome of the underlying tax case unaffected.
Why does Thomas v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue matter for law firms using AI?
Thomas is the Tax Court’s first sustained discussion of generative AI in attorney filings, and it is notable for what the court declined to do: no monetary fine, no CLE order, no bar referral. Judge Buch traced the responsibility to Tax Court Rule 33, which (mirroring Fed. R. Civ. P. 11) makes the signing attorney accountable regardless of who actually drafted the document, and invoked ABA Model Rule 5.1 on supervisory duties. The court took the unusual step of issuing a written opinion on a “symbolic” remedy because it wanted to put practitioners on notice. For a managing partner, the operative lesson is delegation hygiene: counsel here said her new paralegal drafted the memo and she did not check it, and that single admission was enough to find a Rule 33 violation. The court’s leniency on the dollar amount turned on access-to-justice equities specific to a sub-$10,000 deficiency case, not on any forgiveness for the underlying conduct, and should not be read as a template for larger matters.
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.