Spanish lawyer fined for submitting AI-generated fake legal citations
A lawyer in Spain's Canary Islands was fined €840 by the regional superior court for submitting a legal appeal citing at least 25 non-existent Supreme Court and Constitutional Court rulings that were invented by an AI system. The court found the conduct violated procedural good faith and rejected the lawyer's claim it was a simple error, noting that professionals should now be aware of AI hallucinations and remain responsible for verifying their submissions.
What happened
A lawyer in the Canary Islands submitted a legal appeal containing citations to at least 25 non-existent Supreme Court and Constitutional Court rulings. The quotations appeared formatted and highlighted as if they were authentic jurisprudence, but had been generated by an AI system.
Court staff reviewed each citation against actual rulings and confirmed the references were either incorrect, fraudulent, or invented. The lawyer claimed it was a simple error, but the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Canarias found the conduct showed gross negligence rather than mere carelessness.
Reported impact
The Tribunal found the lawyer's conduct violated the duty of good faith in legal proceedings and showed disrespect to the court. The court was forced to manually verify each citation in the appeal to determine which were fabricated.
Index analysis
The court noted that AI systems can produce 'hallucinations'—fabricated answers without factual basis—and that professionals should be aware of this risk by now. The court stated that use of AI tools does not free lawyers from their obligation to verify and check the content of documents submitted to judicial bodies.
Governance controls
The court set the 840-euro fine equivalent to one year's subscription cost for a specialized legal AI tool (starting at 70 euros monthly), aiming to encourage lawyers to use verified professional tools. This was not the first case; the same court had fined another lawyer 420 euros in February for citing up to 48 false AI-generated citations.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.