Whiting v. City of Athens: a federal appeals court fines two lawyers $15,000 each for briefs with 'over two dozen fake citations'

The problem

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit consolidated several appeals brought for Glenn Whiting against the City of Athens, Tennessee, and various officials, arising from an incident at the city’s 2022 annual fireworks show (source). On its initial review of the briefs, filed by Whiting’s attorneys Van R. Irion and Russ Egli of Knoxville, the court found “many of the cases cited in Whiting’s briefs either did not exist, did not include the quoted language he claimed they did, or did not discuss or support the proposition for which Whiting cited them” (source). That pattern, bulk fabricated citations, is the signature of generative-AI “hallucination,” though the court stopped short of finding AI was used (source).

What was built

This is not a technology deployment; it is an AI-governance outcome, and TIN files it as an honest negative. The court ordered Irion and Egli to show cause, and its directives included telling the court whether they used generative AI to write the briefs and explaining how they cite-checked (source). Rather than substantively respond, Irion and Egli called the order “void on its face” and characterized it as “harassment” (source). The court declined to make an express finding that generative AI produced the citations, ruling instead that no filing should contain any citation, “whether provided by generative AI or any other source,” that a lawyer “has not personally read and verified” (source). It sanctioned the attorneys under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 38 (frivolous appeal) and the court’s inherent authority, not Rule 11 (source).

The outcome

The count of fabrications: over two dozen fake citations. The court wrote, “we found over two dozen fake citations and misrepresentations of fact in Whiting’s briefs,” a total the opinion described as “a conservative estimate” because it excluded obvious typos (source, source).

The punitive sanction, per attorney: $15,000 each, $30,000 combined. On March 13, 2026, the panel (opinion by Circuit Judge John K. Bush; Stranch, Bush, and Murphy, Circuit Judges) held that “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” (source). Reason’s Volokh Conspiracy reproduces that sanction paragraph verbatim, and Local 3 News/WRCB-TV Chattanooga reported the attorneys “must pay $30k” between them (source, source).

Companion sanctions on top of the fine. The court further ordered the two attorneys, jointly and severally, to reimburse appellees “in full for their reasonable attorneys’ fees on appeal in all three appeals” and to pay “double costs to appellees” under 28 U.S.C. section 1920 (source). Finally, “the clerk will forward a copy of this order to the chief judge to consider disciplinary proceedings under Sixth Circuit Local Rule 46” (source).

How this was verified

The origin is a published federal appellate opinion, which is self-authenticating: no client-confirmation call is booked against the court, and green here never depends on the sanctioned attorneys confirming anything (source). Checked live on 2026-08-04, the opinion text was read against the FindLaw reprint of the Sixth Circuit’s published opinion (File Name 26a0080p.06), and the $15,000-each fine and the “over two dozen fake citations” finding were each corroborated by two mutually independent newsrooms, Reason/The Volokh Conspiracy and Local 3 News/WRCB-TV Chattanooga (source). The honest limit: which AI tool, if any, produced the citations is left open, because the court declined to find AI use and no claim in this record asserts it. This file makes no claim beyond what the opinion holds.

Related case files

The same honest-negative posture, a fabricated-citation sanction where the court would not formally pin it on AI, appears in United States v. Hayes, where the court sanctioned a fictitious citation but expressly declined to find AI use. Within this same Sixth Circuit, United States v. Farris shows the circuit denying CJA compensation and removing counsel over AI-fabricated quotations. And for how a state appellate court treated a comparable first-of-its-kind fabricated-citation sanction, see Noland v. Land of the Free, a $10,000 sanction in California’s first published opinion on the problem.

Sources

Checked live on 2026-08-04. Tier 1 = the primary court opinion; Tier 2 = independent press naming the parties.

1. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, “Whiting v. City of Athens, Tennessee,” Nos. 24-5918/5919 & 25-5424 (consolidated), decided 2026-03-13 (Tier 1, published appellate opinion; read via the FindLaw reprint, and the official PDF is File Name 26a0080p.06). https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-6th-circuit/118226414.html · official PDF
2. Reason, The Volokh Conspiracy (Eugene Volokh), “Lawyers Citing Nonexistent Cases Ordered to Pay Opponents’ Attorney Fees, Double Costs, $15K Fine Each,” 2026-03-14 (Tier 2, independent, reproduces the sanction paragraph). https://reason.com/volokh/2026/03/14/lawyers-citing-nonexistent-cases-ordered-to-pay-opponents-attorney-fees-double-costs-15k-fine/
3. Local 3 News / WRCB-TV Chattanooga, “Lawsuits against City of Athens dismissed; attorneys must pay $30k,” 2026-03 (Tier 2, independent regional newsroom). https://www.local3news.com/local-news/lawsuits-against-city-of-athens-dismissed-attorneys-must-pay-30k/article_5b932804-8ec0-4f09-a329-eb67a736bf9d.html