Williams v. Rashid

What sanction did the court impose?

Chief Judge Andrew P. Gordon granted Bistro's motion to strike and for sanctions in part. He held that "an attorney who uses AI but does not check the cases cited is reckless," that citing nonexistent cases is "an abuse of the judicial process, recklessly frivolous, and tantamount to bad faith," and that sanctions under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 and inherent power were warranted. He declined to confine the sanction to Guinasso, finding the NCOSE attorneys had some responsibility for cite checking noting that six NCOSE attorneys were on the case, that they had not read the opposition, and that Hirsch drafted the amended filings. The court struck the amended filings, both as a sanction and as unauthorized supplements under Local Rule 7-2(g); denied the original reconsideration motion with prejudice, both as a sanction and on the merits; and awarded Bistro its reasonable fees and costs caused by the hallucinations, jointly and severally against NCOSE and Guinasso Law, Ltd., with the amount to be agreed by June 26, 2026 or sought by motion by July 14, 2026. It declined to award fees to the Western Best defendants or to dismiss the case, and did not order the other relief Bistro requested, including an admonishment and a citation-certification requirement.

Why does Williams v. Rashid matter for law firms using AI?

Williams v. Rashid shows how a citation problem can grow when co-counsel divide the work. Local counsel drafted a reconsideration motion with AI and sent it to the national organization’s lawyers to “double-check the authorities cited”; according to their declarant, they reviewed for continuity and Bluebook form but did not cite-check, believing the filing attorney would; the court found they had some responsibility for cite checking. When the defendant’s opposition identified nonexistent cases and misquotes, the reply dismissed the concerns as quibbling, and the later amended motion still cited a nonexistent Nevada case and a habeas decision for a contract-law proposition. The amended motion had not been withdrawn or corrected when the court ruled.

Chief Judge Gordon held that citing fake cases, “whether AI hallucinated or otherwise,” is sanctionable, and that because “AI’s tendency to hallucinate cases is well known,” a lawyer who uses AI without checking citations acts recklessly. He credited local counsel’s acceptance of responsibility but refused his request to bear the sanction alone, pointing to the co-counsel’s cite-checking role and their failure to read the opposition. The fee award was limited to losses caused by the misconduct: fees for Bistro’s opposition were reduced to the time spent on the hallucinations.

Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that here the court looked beyond the lawyer who used AI to the allocation of cite-checking between co-counsel and to the decision to amend rather than withdraw.