Whiting v. City of Athens, Tennessee

The timeline

• 2022An incident at the City of Athens, Tennessee's annual fireworks show leads to litigation; Glenn Whiting, represented by Van R. Irion and Russ Egli, files suits that are eventually consolidated into three appeals.
• 2024–2025The appeals proceed as Nos. 24-5918/5919 and 25-5424. The briefs repeatedly misrepresent the record, cite nonexistent cases, and cite cases for propositions they do not contain.
• After briefingThe court issues a show-cause order asking, among other points, whether generative AI was used and how the briefs were cite-checked. Neither attorney responds substantively; one accuses the court of harassment and participation in a conspiracy.
• 13 Mar 2026The published sanctions opinion issues, recommended for publication, alongside a separate opinion affirming the district court on the merits.

What the AI did

That is the unusual part: we do not know. The court asked whether AI was involved; the attorneys declined to answer. The opinion therefore makes no AI finding, and states the rule in deliberately general terms, a lawyer may not cite cases “provided by generative AI or any other source” that the lawyer has not personally “read and verified.” The failure mode the court itemized in an appendix was broader than hallucination: nonexistent cases, quotations that appear nowhere in the cited opinion, and real cases cited for propositions they do not discuss.

What the court did, and why

“All told, we found over two dozen fake citations and misrepresentations of fact in Whiting's briefs, which we list in an appendix to this opinion.”, Whiting v. City of Athens (6th Cir. PDF)

Acting under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 38 and its inherent authority (with a bad-faith finding), the court ordered:

• Fees“Irion and Egli must jointly and severally reimburse appellees in full for their reasonable attorneys' fees on appeal in all three appeals.”
• CostsDouble costs to the appellees under 28 U.S.C. § 1920, “the stiffest penalty available under Rule 38.”
• $15,000 each“Irion and Egli must each separately and individually pay $15,000 to the registry of this court as punitive sanctions for the proceedings in this court in all three appeals.”
• Referral“The clerk will forward a copy of this order to the chief judge to consider disciplinary proceedings under Sixth Circuit Local Rule 46.”

“We choose $15,000 each because (1) the misconduct was spread across three cases instead of just one and (2) smaller fines have plainly been inadequate, as is evidenced by the continuous stream of cases raising the same problems.”

Two further points carry practice weight. The court rejected the argument that asking how briefs were cite-checked invades attorney-client privilege or work product, procedural verification questions, it held, do not reach legal advice. And it declined to sanction the client: “we have no evidence that Whiting participated in the misconduct.”

What it changed

Whiting is the first published appellate opinion in this record to stack every remedy at once: compensatory (fees), deterrent (double costs), punitive (registry fines) and institutional (disciplinary referral). It also closed the “you may not ask how I checked” door. Both attorneys arrived with histories, as reported, Irion had been suspended from the Eastern District of Tennessee for five years in August 2025 for lack of candor in the underlying case (as reported), and the opinion reads as the court writing for the next lawyer, not these two.

Sources

• Published opinion, Nos. 24-5918/5919, 25-5424 (6th Cir. PDF, 13 Mar 2026)
• Same opinion (CourtListener copy)
• Prior-discipline background (David S. Kemp), as reported

Related

• The full sanctions record
• Mata v. Avianca, quoted inside the Whiting opinion
• Couvrette v. Wisnovsky, the record penalty at the trial court
• Every verified AI standing order

Checked 4 August 2026. The opinion makes no finding that AI produced the fabrications; we say so wherever we describe this case. Information, not legal advice.