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A v. B

Court
Florence
Jurisdiction
Italy
Decided
2025-03-13
AI tool
ChatGPT
Outcome
No financial sanction; Formal Judicial Reprimand; Findings of procedural misuse
Monetary penalty
None reported

What was hallucinated

Fabricated: Case Law | La comparsa di costituzione della reclamata citava sentenze della Cassazione inesistenti sul profilo soggettivo dell'acquisto/vendita di merce contraffatta; eccepite dal reclamante e riconosciute dal Tribunale come risultati di 'allucinazioni' di ChatGPT, con diniego però della condanna ex art. 96 c.p.c. || False Quotes: Case Law | Ulteriori richiami giurisprudenziali riportavano contenuti non corrispondenti alle effettive decisioni (tema diverso da quello invocato); ammesso dalla parte che li ha prodotti come esito di ricerca con ChatGPT; il Tribunale ha stigmatizzato l’omesso controllo ma ha escluso i presupposti per la condanna ex art. 96 c.p.c.

Details

AI UseThe respondent retailer's defense cited Italian Supreme Court judgments that did not exist, claiming support for their arguments regarding lack of subjective bad faith. During subsequent hearings, it was admitted that these fake citations were generated by ChatGPT during internal research by an assistant, and the lead lawyer had failed to independently verify them.Hallucination DetailsCited fabricated cassation rulings allegedly supporting subjective good faith defenses. No such rulings could be found in official databases; court confirmed their nonexistence. Hallucinated decisions related to counterfeit goods sales defensesRuling/SanctionThe court declined to impose a financial sanction under Article 96 Italian Code of Civil Procedure .

Sanction teardown · Florence, Italy · 2025-03-13

A v. B

What happened

In Florence, Italy, a filing relied on ChatGPT to help draft legal argument. The court identified the following problems with the citations in that filing:

  • Fabricated (Case Law)
    La comparsa di costituzione della reclamata citava sentenze della Cassazione inesistenti sul profilo soggettivo dell'acquisto/vendita di merce contraffatta; eccepite dal reclamante e riconosciute dal Tribunale come risultati di 'allucinazioni' di ChatGPT, con diniego però della condanna ex art. 96 c.p.c.
  • False Quotes (Case Law)
    Ulteriori richiami giurisprudenziali riportavano contenuti non corrispondenti alle effettive decisioni (tema diverso da quello invocato); ammesso dalla parte che li ha prodotti come esito di ricerca con ChatGPT; il Tribunale ha stigmatizzato l’omesso controllo ma ha escluso i presupposti per la condanna ex art. 96 c.p.c.

Which AI tool

ChatGPT. Note: Charlotin's public database records tool attribution only where a court order, brief, or reporting on the matter states it explicitly; "unidentified" or "implied" means the record indicates AI use but does not name a specific product — we do not guess.

Outcome

No financial sanction; Formal Judicial Reprimand; Findings of procedural misuse

Additional detail

AI UseThe respondent retailer's defense cited Italian Supreme Court judgments that did not exist, claiming support for their arguments regarding lack of subjective bad faith. During subsequent hearings, it was admitted that these fake citations were generated by ChatGPT during internal research by an assistant, and the lead lawyer had failed to independently verify them.Hallucination DetailsCited fabricated cassation rulings allegedly supporting subjective good faith defenses. No such rulings could be found in official databases; court confirmed their nonexistence. Hallucinated decisions related to counterfeit goods sales defensesRuling/SanctionThe court declined to impose a financial sanction under Article 96 Italian Code of Civil Procedure .

How Citation Safe would have caught this

Citation Safe runs three deterministic layers before a brief is filed: (1) does the citation exist against CourtListener's database of published opinions, (2) if quoted, does that exact language appear in the source, (3) does the cited case actually support the proposition it is cited for. Fabricated case citations fail Layer 1. Fabricated or misattributed quotations fail Layer 2 even when the underlying case is real. Misrepresented holdings — a real case cited for a proposition it does not support — are the target of Layer 3. None of these checks involve asking another language model whether the citation looks right; they are lookups and text-matches against the actual source, which is why a hallucinated citation has to survive a direct lookup against the authoritative source — not another model's opinion — to earn a VERIFIED stamp; our measured false-verify rate is published live at /quality.

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Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/254/A_v._B_Florence_March_13_2025.pdf, via Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).

Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/254/A_v._B_Florence_March_13_2025.pdf

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