AI output retained as evidence, including errors. It is not an adopted legal opinion. Line numbers identify logical transcript lines, not original screen or court pages.
Prompt
Can a Utah lawyer avoid sanctions for fabricated citations by explaining that a law clerk used ChatGPT without the lawyer's knowledge?
L003In Utah, an attorney cannot avoid sanctions for submitting fabricated citations by shifting the blame to an unsupervised law clerk who used ChatGPT.
L011In Garner, an attorney submitted an appellate petition that cited fabricated case law—including a fictional decision styled Royer v. Nelson that existed solely within ChatGPT's output.
L016The Defense: Counsel explained that an unlicensed law clerk had drafted the filing, that the clerk had used ChatGPT without the supervising lawyers' knowledge or direction, and that the firm had no formal AI policy in place.
L019The Ruling: The Utah Court of Appeals rejected the argument that a clerk's unauthorized AI usage insulates the signing attorney. The court held that the attorneys fell short of their non-delegable "gatekeeping responsibilities as members of the Utah State Bar" by filing unverified pleadings.
L023The Penalty: Sanctions were imposed under Utah Rule of Appellate Procedure 40 (the appellate analog to Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 11). The court ordered counsel to pay opposing counsel's attorney fees, refund/forgo billing the client for the defective work, and pay $1,000 to the Utah legal aid organization And Justice for All.
L031Certification Upon Signature (Utah R. Civ. P. 11 / Utah R. App. P. 40): An attorney's signature certifies that the attorney made "an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances" to ensure the claims and legal contentions are warranted by existing law. Signing a document without reading and verifying cited authorities breaches that duty regardless of who drafted the text.
L035Supervisory Obligations (Utah Rules of Professional Conduct 5.1 & 5.3): Managing and supervisory attorneys must make reasonable efforts to ensure non-lawyer assistants—including law clerks, paralegals, and interns—conduct themselves in a manner compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer. Pleading ignorance of a clerk's methods simply converts a citation-checking failure into an admitted failure of supervision.
L038No Shift of Gatekeeping Burden: As the Garner court observed (echoing Mata v. Avianca, Inc., 678 F. Supp. 3d 443), neither opposing counsel nor the judiciary can be made responsible for independently checking the veracity of an attorney's citations.
L045In Garner, the court noted that counsel's candor and lack of knowledge meant their conduct did not rise to a "knowing" or "reckless" violation of Rule 3.3 (Candor Toward the Tribunal), sparing them from findings of deliberate dishonesty.
L048However, because the signature alone breaches the baseline duty of reasonable inquiry, cost-shifting sanctions, fee forfeitures, and referral/reporting remain standard remedies.