Withers v. City of Aberdeen: a federal court sanctions attorneys on both sides $8,000 for AI-hallucinated citations

The problem

Withers v. City of Aberdeen is a breach-of-contract dispute over legal fees between Louisiana attorney Tom Withers III and the City of Aberdeen, Mississippi (source). During summary-judgment briefing, counsel on both sides independently used generative-AI tools to research and draft their memoranda and filed briefs citing cases that do not exist (source). Unable to locate the cited authorities, the court entered an order to show cause on December 10, 2025 directing all counsel of record to explain why sanctions should not follow (source). The court called it “an unusual scenario, attorneys for both litigants engaged in similar sanctionable conduct” (source).

What was built

No system was built and no outcome was delivered: this is an AI-governance honest-negative (source). Two out-of-state attorneys drove the AI use. Kathryn Y. Williams (for the City) admitted using an AI tool to conduct legal research and incorporating the output without verification, and Kathleen M. Wilson (for Withers) admitted using a generative-AI drafting program she identified as “First Drafts,” which the order describes as “an AI-powered program for drafting legal documents,” again without verifying the output (source). The order names no tool for Williams (source). Both local counsel, Shauncey Hunter Ridgeway and Mark C. McClinton, signed the filings without catching the fabricated authorities (source). The court framed the lesson in terms every buyer of legal AI should hear: while “generative technology can produce words,” it “cannot attach … sincerity, truth, or responsibility to what it writes. That remains the sacred duty of the lawyer who signs the page” (source).

The outcome

In a Sanctions Order filed June 8, 2026 (Doc. #123), U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock sanctioned all four attorneys under Rule 11, the court’s Local Rules and its inherent authority (source).

The number that gets quoted: $8,000 in total fines across four attorneys.

Attorney	Role	Monetary fine	Other
Kathleen M. Wilson	Plaintiff, out-of-state counsel (drafter)	$2,500	Pro hac vice revoked; two-year district bar; AI-ethics CLE
Kathryn Y. Williams	City, out-of-state counsel (drafter)	$3,500	Pro hac vice revoked; two-year district bar
Shauncey Hunter Ridgeway	Plaintiff, local counsel	$1,000	Disqualified from the case
Mark C. McClinton	City, local counsel	$1,000	Disqualified from the case

Each fine is payable to the registry of the court within 30 days of the order (source). Wilson’s and Williams’s pro hac vice admissions were revoked and both were barred from entering an appearance in the Northern District of Mississippi for two years (source). Ridgeway and McClinton were disqualified from further participation in the case (source). Wilson, the only attorney ordered to do so, must complete a CLE on artificial intelligence with an ethics component within 60 days (source). The court directed the Clerk to send the order to the Mississippi Bar, the Louisiana Bar and the Texas Bar (source). It stayed the case and cancelled the trial that had been set for March 23, 2026 (source).

How this was verified

This case carries a green badge under TIN’s current standard: independently validated by TIN against the public record. It is court-adjudicated, so every dollar figure, bar, disqualification, referral and the CLE is established by the signed federal order and needs no client-confirmation call. Each figure was read verbatim from the Sanctions Order (Doc. #123, Case 1:24-CV-218-SA-RP, filed 06/08/26), whose per-attorney fines ($2,500, $3,500, $1,000, $1,000), two-year bars, disqualifications, bar referrals and March 23, 2026 trial cancellation were confirmed against the order text on 2026-08-14 and corroborated by three independent newsrooms (Reason/The Volokh Conspiracy, The Legal Wire and FindLaw). The “$8,000 total” is the sum of the four fines stated individually in the order, not a figure the order prints as one number. No independent newsroom carried the March 23, 2026 trial date or the verbatim “sacred duty” passage; both come from the signed order itself, which is the primary source and outranks any secondary here.

Related case files

The disqualify-and-refer response, not just a fine, also drove Johnson v. Dunn, where Butler Snow attorneys were disqualified and referred after five hallucinated ChatGPT citations. The plain Rule 11 mechanics here echo Wadsworth v. Walmart, where a large plaintiff firm drew a $5,000 Rule 11 sanction for the same failure to verify AI-generated authorities. And the involvement of counsel at a national firm tracks Lacey v. State Farm, where a special master imposed a far larger sanction for AI-fabricated citations.

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Sources

Cited in this case file. Tier 1 = primary (the signed federal order and the court docket); Tier 2 = independent press naming the parties. Each figure was checked against the live source on 2026-08-14.

1. U.S. District Court, N.D. Miss., “Sanctions Order,” Withers v. City of Aberdeen, No. 1:24-CV-218-SA-RP, Doc. #123, filed 2026-06-08 (Tier 1, the signed federal order; PDF hosted by Courthouse News). https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/sacred-duty-of-the-lawyer.pdf
2. CourtListener, “Withers v. City of Aberdeen, 1:24-cv-00218,” docket (Tier 1, the court docket). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69485760/withers-v-city-of-aberdeen/
3. Reason / The Volokh Conspiracy, “Nonexistent Case Citations on Both Sides + ‘Rubberstamp[ing]’ by ‘Local Counsel’,” 2026-06-09 (Tier 2, independent press). https://reason.com/volokh/2026/06/09/nonexistent-case-citations-on-both-sides-rubberstamping-by-local-counsel/
4. The Legal Wire, “Mississippi federal judge sanctions attorneys on both sides over AI hallucinations,” 2026 (Tier 2, independent press). https://thelegalwire.ai/mississippi-federal-judge-sanctions-attorneys-on-both-sides-over-ai-hallucinations/
5. FindLaw, “Judge Cancels Trial After Both Sides Submitted Filings With AI Hallucinations,” 2026 (Tier 2, independent press). https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/technologist/judge-cancels-trial-after-both-sides-submitted-filings-with-ai-hallucinations/