A federal judge Thursday asked an attorney defending writer Chris Epting in a defamation lawsuit filed by former NFL punter and Huntington Beach resident Chris Kluwe what sanctions he thinks he deserves for misusing artificial intelligence in legal briefs.
“I don’t believe monetary sanctions are appropriate,” attorney William J. Becker Jr. told U.S. District Judge Fred Slaughter during a hearing in Santa Ana.
“So zero is the answer?” Slaughter replied.
“Zero is the answer,” Becker said.
Becker argued that the “humiliation” alone in being admonished for the misstep was punishment enough.
Slaughter said it was “unacceptable” to submit court briefs with fictitious cases for arguments on precedent.
“There’s no excuse for this,” Slaughter said.
Becker apologized for the misstep, saying he was “fairly ashamed by it” and blaming the error on a lack of resources for his nonprofit Freedom X Law.
“I failed my client,” he said. “I stand before you filled with humility.”
He said the work he submitted was “all done in haste,” because, “I have zero resources. [And] in this case, I’m up against a big, big law firm.”
Slaughter called AI a game of telephone, saying it was incumbent on attorneys to double check anything the tool yields with the original sources. The judge said he does not use artificial intelligence, adding, “I rely on me” and his personal research of the various laws and legal books as reference.
Daniel Sasse, an attorney for Kluwe, said Becker submitted legal briefs citing “three cases that didn’t exist at all,” indicating Becker did not check the work produced by the artificial intelligence at all. Sasse counted 22 examples of incorrect citations to legal precedence.
Slaughter also heard arguments from attorney Mark Bresee of the Huntington Beach Union High School District on a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, citing legal immunity.
Chris Kluwe was arrested at a Huntington Beach City Council meeting in February when he protested the council’s intention to create a MAGA plaque for the library.
(Courtesy of Protect Huntington Beach video )
Sasse argued Kluwe was fired from his job as a coach at Edison High School following criticism from Epting and others on social media regarding Kluwe’s civil disobedience arrest at a Huntington Beach City Council meeting in February, where he protested a plaque at the city library that proclaimed “Make America Great Again.”
School officials cited a civility policy that Kluwe “had never seen,” Sasse said.
Kluwe’s attorney said even though Kluwe was an at-will employee, he still had 1st Amendment rights.
Bresee said the school’s policy was one “you’ll see all over the state.”
“It appears the plaintiff has a long history of activism for civil rights issues for years,” Slaughter said of Kluwe’s speaking out, dating back to his public support of legalizing same-sex marriage in 2012. And yet Edison officials did not discipline or fire him before this year, the judge noted.
Sasse said his client was told he was being fired because of the positions he was taking against Huntington Beach decisions.
Epting is accused in the defamation suit of framing a social media post of the former punter’s as espousing violence, which Kluwe denied.
Bresee said the fact that Kluwe was never fired before due to his activism would show that he was discriminated against this year for exercising his free speech rights.
Bresee also argued Kluwe was the one who went public with the reasons for his termination, so he can’t make a liberty interest claim now.
Sasse argued Kluwe reposted Epting’s comments to make the case his statement was “false and defamatory.”
Slaughter said he would issue ruling at a later time.