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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe monetary sanctions are appropriate,\u201d attorney William J. Becker Jr. told U.S. District Judge Fred Slaughter during a hearing in Santa Ana.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo zero is the answer?\u201d Slaughter replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cZero is the answer,\u201d Becker said.<\/p>\n
Becker argued that the \u201chumiliation\u201d alone in being admonished for the misstep was punishment enough.<\/p>\n
Slaughter said it was \u201cunacceptable\u201d to submit court briefs with fictitious cases for arguments on precedent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no excuse for this,\u201d Slaughter said.<\/p>\n
Becker apologized for the misstep, saying he was \u201cfairly ashamed by it\u201d and blaming the error on a lack of resources for his nonprofit Freedom X Law.<\/p>\n
\u201cI failed my client,\u201d he said. \u201cI stand before you filled with humility.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the work he submitted was \u201call done in haste,\u201d because, \u201cI have zero resources. [And] in this case, I\u2019m up against a big, big law firm.\u201d<\/p>\n
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, \u201cI rely on me\u201d and his personal research of the various laws and legal books as reference.<\/p>\n
Daniel Sasse, an attorney for Kluwe, said Becker submitted legal briefs citing \u201cthree cases that didn\u2019t exist at all,\u201d indicating Becker did not check the work produced by the artificial intelligence at all. Sasse counted 22 examples of incorrect citations to legal precedence.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Chris Kluwe was arrested at a Huntington Beach City Council meeting in February when he protested the council\u2019s intention to create a MAGA plaque for the library.<\/p>\n
(Courtesy of Protect Huntington Beach video )<\/p>\n
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\u2019s civil disobedience arrest at a Huntington Beach City Council meeting in February, where he protested a plaque at the city library that proclaimed \u201cMake America Great Again.\u201d<\/p>\n
School officials cited a civility policy that Kluwe \u201chad never seen,\u201d Sasse said.<\/p>\n
Kluwe\u2019s attorney said even though Kluwe was an at-will employee, he still had 1st Amendment rights.<\/p>\n
Bresee said the school\u2019s policy was one \u201cyou\u2019ll see all over the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt appears the plaintiff has a long history of activism for civil rights issues for years,\u201d Slaughter said of Kluwe\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Sasse said his client was told he was being fired because of the positions he was taking against Huntington Beach decisions.<\/p>\n
Epting is accused in the defamation suit of framing a social media post of the former punter\u2019s as espousing violence, which Kluwe denied.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Bresee also argued Kluwe was the one who went public with the reasons for his termination, so he can\u2019t make a liberty interest claim now.<\/p>\n
Sasse argued Kluwe reposted Epting\u2019s comments to make the case his statement was \u201cfalse and defamatory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slaughter said he would issue ruling at a later time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge Thursday asked an attorney defending writer Chris Epting in a defamation lawsuit filed by former…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":329091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,163612,28454,738,12854,134577,163613,163610,163614,163611,6616,163608,163615,116528,163609,158,67,132,68,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-329090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-ai-use","10":"tag-argument","11":"tag-artificial-intelligence","12":"tag-attorney","13":"tag-becker","14":"tag-bresee","15":"tag-daniel-sasse","16":"tag-epting","17":"tag-fictitious-case","18":"tag-judge","19":"tag-kluwe","20":"tag-kluwe-case","21":"tag-sanction","22":"tag-slaughter","23":"tag-technology","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115429099704694215","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}