Jarrus et al v. Governor of Michigan et al

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
MICHAEL D. JARRUS and LINDA
JARROUS,
Plaintiffs,
v.
GOVERNOR OF MICHIGAN, et
al.,
Defendants.
___________________________ /
Case No. 25-cv-11168
F. Kay Behm
U.S. District Judge
Anthony P. Patti
U.S. Magistrate Judge
OPINION AND ORDER ON ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE AND
IMPOSING SANCTIONS FOR USE OF CHAT GPT (ECF Nos. 170,
171)
This order is issued upon receipt of Plaintiff’s response to an order
to show cause for use of so-called artificial intelligence (“AI”) in drafting
their objections to an order issued by the Magistrate Judge. ECF No.
170 (objections); ECF Nos. 174 (response), 172 (declaration of Plaintiff
Michael Jarrus), 173 (declaration of Plaintiff Linda Jarrous).
Although Plaintiffs were warned by Magistrate Judge Patti of the
dangers of the use of generative AI, Plaintiffs nonetheless appeared to
make use of such a tool without checking the results. 	See ECF No. 170,
PageID.3194 (including a clearly AI-generated phrase, “Here’s the
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revised Paragraph 2, . . .”). Even on first review, their briefing
appeared to be nothing more than a copy-paste from a chatbot-style
generative AI tool. Ironically, Plaintiffs objected to the Magistrate
Judge’s warning about AI use in the same document that they relied on
AI-generated text.
Upon more careful review of the objections, the court identified a
series of citations in Plaintiffs’ brief that were false citations (with real
cases, but with explanations that did not reflect the case cited).
For example:
• 	Plaintiffs cited Krupski v. Costa Crociere S. p. A., 560 U.S.
538 (2010), for the proposition that if a plaintiff seeks to
amend their complaint and an added defendant “knew or
should have known” that the action would have been
brought against them but for a mistake (i.e. that the
amendment would “relate back”), that “amendment is not
discretionary - it is mandatory.” 	Krupski does not say that
the court must permit amendment under that circumstance.
Rule 15(a), not Rule 15(c), sets forth the circumstances in
which a party may amend its pleading before trial.
• 	Plaintiffs cited District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570
(2008), for the proposition that “the loss of Second
Amendment deprivations, even for minimal periods,
constitutes irreparable injury.” 	Heller does not say that a
temporary loss of Second Amendment rights is irreparable
harm; Plaintiffs are extending a statement from Elrod v.
Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976), regarding the First
Amendment and applying it to the Second. But “the
Supreme Court has never applied this presumption [from
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Elrod] outside the First Amendment context.” 	Nat’l Ass’n for
Gun Rights v. Lamont, 153 F.4th 213, 248 (2d Cir. 2025).
• 	Plaintiffs cited Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S.
340,351 (1978), for the proposition that they are entitled to
limited discovery on jurisdictional issues under Rule 26.
Oppenheimer, however, was superseded by statute. It is
therefore “inappropriate to continue to cite to Oppenheimer
for the purpose of construing the scope of discovery under
amended Rule 26(b)(1).” 	Peterson v. Corby, 347 F.R.D. 192,
195 (E.D. Mich. 2024). Any reasonable inquiry – even a very
brief one – would have revealed that reliance on
Oppenheimer was misplaced.
As this court has previously pointed out, the use of AI tools
without independent fact-checking and citation-checking
unquestionably violates Rule 11. Chatbots do not conduct a “reasonable
inquiry” into existing law or the evidentiary support for factual
contentions. A large language model (LLM) is a “word guesser” – it is
“trying to predict what the next words would be if that sentence
appeared on the internet.” 	Seither & Cherry Quad Cities, Inc. v.
Oakland Automation, LLC, No. 23-11310, 2025 LX 205874, 2025 WL
2105286, at *5 (E.D. Mich. July 28, 2025). It has “no way of ‘knowing’
whether that sentence it created about the case’s holding was in fact
true or false.” 	Id.
In light of the requirements of Rule 11 and the Magistrate Judge’s
prior warning (ECF No. 168, PageID.3183), the court ordered Plaintiffs
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to show cause in writing why they should not be sanctioned pursuant to
Rule 11(b)(2) & (c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for
attributing fictitious holdings to court decisions, apparently in reliance
on AI-generated content, and after clear notice by the court. 	See,
e.g., Mata v. Avianca, Inc., 678 F. Supp. 3d 443 (S.D.N.Y. June 22,
2023); ECF No. 168, PageID.3182 (warning to Plaintiffs).
In response, Plaintiffs, to their credit, generally do not try to avoid
fault and admit that they used Chat GPT “without proper verification.”
ECF No. 174, PageID.3229. However, two specific points are worth
addressing.
First, the fact that Plaintiffs, and particularly Michael Jarrus
(who drafted the briefing at issue), did not “fabricate cases or cite
nonexistent decisions” is of no help. When a case cite is “real,” an
attorney, or for that matter a judge, might see a case they recognize and
assume the quote or holding has been accurately represented. 	Seither
& Cherry, 2025 WL 2105286, at *1. That problem is illustrated here;
although Chat GPT generated “holdings” that looked like they could
plausibly have appeared in the cited cases, in fact it overstated their
holdings to a significant degree. And while a litigant might get away
with similar overstatements because they could, perhaps, reason their
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way to showing how a case’s stated holding might extend to novel
situations, an LLM does not reason in the way a litigant must. To put it
in a slightly different way, LLMs do not perform the metacognitive
processes that are necessary to comply with Rule 11. LLMs are tools
that “emulate the communicative function of language, not the separate
and distinct cognitive process of thinking and reasoning.” Benjamin
Riley, Large language mistake, The Verge https://www.theverge.com/ai-
artificial-intelligence/827820/large-language-models-ai-intelligence-
neuroscience-problems [https://perma.cc/7EHD-PLLZ]. When an LLM
overstates a holding of a case, it is not because it made a mistake when
logically working through how that case might represent a
“nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing
law or for establishing new law;” it is just piecing together a plausible-
looking sentence – one whose content may or may not be true.
Second, the court is also concerned by, and therefore highlights,
the conduct of Plaintiff Linda Jarrous. Plaintiff Michael Jarrus admits
to being the primary drafter of the problematic submissions, and the
person who originally created and copied the AI-generated text without
verifying the truth of its content. But Rule 11 imposes obligations on
each and every signatory to a briefing, not just the person who was the
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primary drafter. 	See Seither & Cherry, 2025 WL 2105286. Linda
Jarrous submitted her declaration and stated that she relies on her son,
Michael Jarrus, to draft the documents, which she reviews “only at a
very general level” before she signs. ECF No. 173, PageID.3222. This
is insufficient to meet the requirements of Rule 11, and Plaintiff Linda
Jarrous is warned that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure impose
obligations on her that are independent of whatever drafting her son
does for their joint case; Michael Jarrus is not an attorney and cannot
represent her or give legal advice. She will be held equally responsible
for the use of misrepresented or otherwise improper citations. A second
instance of Plaintiff Linda Jarrus’ failure to independently verify the
claims, defenses, factual contentions, or other legal contentions
presented in a briefing with her signature may result in dismissal of her
claims in their entirety. For now, the court begins with less-restrictive
alternatives.
The court is cognizant that imposing a monetary sanction on
plaintiffs who qualify for IFP status may be ineffective. 	See Haskins v.
Dart, 633 F.3d 541, 544 (7th Cir. 2011); Simmons v. Gilmore, No. 2:17-
CV-00996, 2020 WL 4016331, at *4 (W.D. Pa. July 16, 2020). However,
the court also ordered Plaintiffs to explain how much, per month, they
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spend on “AI” subscriptions per month. Plaintiff Michael Jarrus
explained that he pays approximately $20 per month in a subscription
to “ChatGPT Plus.” Over the course of 12 months, the evidence
suggests that Plaintiff Michael Jarrus is at least able to afford a Chat
GPT subscription of about $240. Absent proof that a monetary sanction
will prove impossible to pay, the court will enter sanctions sufficient to
deter similar conduct in the future.
It is therefore ORDERED that:
1) Plaintiffs’ objections (ECF No. 170) are OVERRULED for
failure to comply with the court’s order and for violation of Rule
11. 	See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 advisory committee’s note to 1993
amendment (“The court has available a variety of possible
sanctions to impose for violations, such as striking the
offending paper . . .”). In order to leave a public record of
Plaintiffs’ noncompliance, the court will not strike the
objections, but consistent with the appropriate sanction, does
not consider them further on their merits.
2) Consistent with Magistrate Judge Patti’s warning that each AI
citation might incur a cost of $200 per citation, the court adopts
that amount and imposes a fine of $300 per Plaintiff (a total of
$600) for three misrepresented, AI-generated citations. Each
Plaintiff shall, individually, be responsible for paying $300.
These fines are due to the Clerk of Court and shall be paid in
full by February 2, 2026. Failure to pay these amounts may
result in dismissal of this action in its entirety or, if one
Plaintiff pays their fine but not the other, of the nonpaying
Plaintiff’s claims for failure to comply.
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3) If Plaintiffs file any future briefing in this case with even a
single misrepresented, misquoted, or fictitious case that is
caused by the use of generative “AI”, this court will strongly
consider any recommendation to dismiss this case for bad faith
failure to comply with court orders, or revocation of Plaintiffs’
IFP status,1 or in the alternative, it would not be clearly
erroneous for the Magistrate Judge to strike or otherwise
refuse to consider the merits of an entire briefing for the
inclusion of a misrepresented, misquoted, or fictitious case.
SO ORDERED.
Date: December 2, 2025 	s/F. Kay Behm
F. Kay Behm
United States District Judge
1 See, e.g., Molter v. Trinity Health St. Mary Mercy, No. 25-11812, 2025 LX
553667 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 7, 2025), report and recommendation adopted, 2025 LX
505957 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 26, 2025).
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