A HIGH Court judge has referred two attorneys to the Disciplinary Committee of the Law Association (LATT) after uncovering multiple fictitious legal authorities cited in court submissions in a lawsuit over the dismissal of a lab assistant in 2023.
“Irresponsible use of internet sources or generative AI tools undermines not only individual cases but also the credibility of the legal system as a whole. If such conduct is not condemned and appropriately addressed, it could lead to a dangerous erosion of the rule of law,” Justice Westmin James said in his ruling on the breach of contract lawsuit. This is possibly the first case locally involving the use of AI, resulting in sanctions.
In his ruling, James described the incident as a serious breach of professional ethics.
“The court recognises that errors can and do occur, even at the judicial level, as evidenced by the appellate process.
“However, the submission of fictitious or unverifiable legal authorities, whether sourced from generative AI tools or carelessly obtained from the internet, constitutes a serious breach of professional responsibility. Attorneys bear an ethical obligation to ensure that all materials submitted to the court are authentic, properly sourced, and reliable.
“The court must be able to place trust in the representations made by counsel as officers of the court.”
The issue arose during proceedings in an employment dispute in which attorneys for Nexgen Pathology Services Ltd, the claimant in the case, submitted several cases with citations to support their arguments that an employer who funds an employee’s training assumes certain contractual obligations.
However, the judge said the cases cited “lacked proper citations and bore characteristics inconsistent with valid Industrial Court decisions in Trinidad and Tobago,” nor could he verify the existence of the cases.
“These purported cases formed the sole legal foundation for the claimant’s central argument. Had they been legitimate, they would have constituted persuasive authority,” James wrote in his ruling.
Upon investigation, James said the court discovered that the cited cases bore inconsistent formatting and structures for Industrial Court rulings.
Notably, he said they were styled as disputes between individuals and companies, although only trade unions appear as parties before the Industrial Court in trade disputes.
He also noted that the cases were not included in the claimant’s bundle of authorities, although they were heavily relied on in submissions.
The judgment said the judge requested copies of the authorities. However, the claimant’s counsel responded that the cases had been retrieved from an online source that was “no longer accessible.” The judge was given a screenshot of an error message.
That explanation was deemed "wholly unsatisfactory" by the judge, who said, “Legitimate court judgments do not simply disappear without a trace from all recognised legal databases.
“Moreover, the absence of these cases from any recognised legal database raises serio
