Description: In a defamation case at the Johannesburg Regional Court, Rodrigues Blignaut Attorneys, representing plaintiff Michelle Parker, reportedly relied on purportedly non-existent legal judgments generated by ChatGPT to help argue their case. Magistrate Arvin Chaitram reportedly found the case names and citations were fictitious, causing a two-month delay. The court issued a punitive costs order and rebuked the plaintiff's legal team for uncritically accepting AI-generated research.
Editor Notes: Timeline note: This incident ID takes 03/01/2023 as its incident date, but it was added to the database on 07/05/2025. The reported timeline is as follows: Reportedly, sometime in March 2023, plaintiff Michelle Parker's legal team argued a defamation claim against the Parkwood body corporate using purportedly non-existent judgments generated by ChatGPT; the magistrate postponed the case to late May to locate the cases; after two months of failed searching, the court found the citations were fictitious and issued a punitive costs order in early July 2023.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: OpenAI developed an AI system deployed by Rodrigues Blignaut Attorneys , Jurie Hayes and Chantal Rodrigues, which harmed Rodrigues Blignaut Attorneys , Jurie Hayes , Chantal Rodrigues , Michelle Parker , Legal integrity , Judicial integrity and Epistemic integrity.
Alleged implicated AI system: ChatGPT
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1138
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2023-03-01
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
Lawyers acting for a woman who claimed she was defamed by a body corporate in Parkwood, Johannesburg, were left red-faced when it emerged they tried to use non-existent judgments generated by ChatGPT to bolster her case.
“The names and cita…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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