Kattom v. Bondi
W.D. Louisiana · Mar 6, 2026
- Jurisdiction
- federal
- Court
- W.D. Louisiana
- Record ID
- kattom-v-bondi-2026-03-06
- Observed outcome
- The court imposed a $1,000 monetary sanction against the attorney, payable personally.
- Known monetary consequence
- $1,000
Why this matter warrants attention
The court sanctioned attorney Kenneth A. Mayeaux $1,000 for filing a memorandum containing fabricated case citations and incorrect quotations generated by ChatGPT. The court held that the attorney failed to fulfill his Rule 11 duty to verify the accuracy of legal authority before submitting it to the court.
Fabricated: Case Law | Memorandum cited cases that did not exist; Court found multiple fabricated case citations generated in the filing. || False Quotes: Case Law | Memorandum included incorrect quotations attributed to cases; Court identified several incorrect quotations in the filing.
ChatGPT is not an approved legal research tool; ban consumer LLMs from citation drafting and log every research tool used.
Failure modes and consequences
- Fake Citations
- Fabricated Quotes
- Civil Rights
- Trial
- Monetary
- AI attribution
- Admitted
- Recorded tool
- ChatGPT
- Known monetary consequence
- $1,000
- Procedural posture
- The court issued an Order and Reasons following a show-cause proceeding regarding potential sanctions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b), (c) and 28 U.S.C. § 1927.
Damien Charlotin case archive
Publisher document archive. The recorded document is hosted in the upstream publisher archive.
Open underlying sourceA recorded source link is not a substitute for checking the underlying order, filing, opinion, or disciplinary record.
What this record does—and does not—establish
Attorney used ChatGPT to draft the memorandum.
Retained unchanged after audit: the existing summary is source-specific, non-placeholder, and supported by the recorded source link. Read the underlying source before relying on it for legal advice or a filing.
Latest evidence review: Primary Document Verified (high confidence).
Controls suggested by the public record
- Verify each cited authority, quotation, and proposition against the underlying source before filing.
- Use only approved research and drafting tools for legal work.
- Retain a matter-level record of source checks and corrections.