A Missouri court fined an O’Fallon man $10,000 for using AI to make up fake cases in his legal brief. He was appealing a ruling that he owed his former employee over $311,000 for unpaid wages and fees.

The Eastern District Court of Appeals said his brief was full of errors and fake citations. Only two of the 24 cases he cited were real. The court said he filed a frivolous appeal and wasted the time of the other side.

The employee’s lawyer said she quickly spotted the fake cases because they did not match the law. She said this was the first case in Missouri where someone was sanctioned for using AI to create fake citations.

The man said he hired a legal consultant from California who used AI to write his brief. He did not know the citations were fake. He did not pay his employee or her lawyer.