| Court - Judge Name | Applicable To | Categories | ||
| D.N.M. – Magistrate Judge John F. Robbenhaar | 11/5/2025 | Generative AI | Generative AI Usage | In Lowrey v. City of Rio Rancho, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 217949 (D.N.M. Nov. 5, 2025), the court found that the pro se plaintiff’s motion to remand contained numerous citations to “nonexistent cases and/or to case law that misleads and falsely represents to the Court legal support for the arguments presented.” The court warned the plaintiff that he is subject to Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 notwithstanding his status as a pro se plaintiff and, as such, he must verify the accuracy of his citations. The court further warned that the plaintiff “will face sanctions, ranging from monetary penalties up to and including dismissal of his case, if his future legal filings contain nonexistent cases and/or citations to case law that misleads and falsely represents to the Court legal support for the arguments presented.” The court ultimately denied the motion to remand on other grounds. |
| Suggests Cautious Use of AI | ||||
| Applies to AI Used for Filings/Drafting | ||||
| D.N.M. – Judge James O. Browning | 9/30/2025 | Generative AI | Generative AI Usage | In Tomlin v. New Mexico, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 193018 (D.N.M. Sept. 30, 2025), the pro se plaintiff included numerous non-existent cases in her opposition to the defendants’ motion to dismiss and failed to provide copies of these cases as requested by the court. Judge Browning presumed the plaintiff relied on “ChatGPT or a similar [GenAI] tool” when drafting this brief, but the specific tool used was unconfirmed. The court reminded the pro se plaintiff of her obligations under the court’s Local Rules, Guide for Pro Se Litigants, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, warning that future inclusion of hallucinated authority could result in sanctions ranging from stricken pleadings, restricted filings, or total dismissal of the case. |
| Suggests Cautious Use of AI | ||||
| Applies to AI Used for Filings/Drafting | ||||
| Dist. N.M. – Magistrate Judge Gregory B. Womuth | 9/22/2025 | Generative AI | Generative AI Usage | In Lipe v. Albuquerque Public Schools, 2025 U.S. Dist. 185610 (D.N.M. Sept. 22, 2025), the court-imposed sanctions on plaintiff’s counsel for violating Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. The court noted that the plaintiff had submitted a filing with “clerical citation errors,” and the plaintiff “conceded that the unreviewed use of artificial intelligence (‘AI’) products to obtain the citations and quotations for the filings” was the basis for those errors. The attorney further admitted that “she did not verify the citations and takes full responsibility for the errors,” and the court noted that she “failed to conduct the necessary review at least three times.” The court made clear that “Plaintiff's counsel's failure is not the use of an AI tool—the Court does not discourage responsible use of the ever-growing array of legal technologies from which modern lawyers can draw. Her real failure is one of delegation, diligence, and response.” As a result, the court imposed sanctions of $3,000 and ordered counsel to self-report to the New Mexico and Arizona state bar disciplinary boards. |
| Applies to AI Used for Filings/Drafting | ||||
| Court-Imposed Consequences – Attorneys/Law Firms | ||||
| D.N.M. - Magistrate Judge Damian L. Martinez | 4/2/2025 | Generative AI | Generative AI Usage | In Dehghani v. Castro, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63641, the Court sanctioned an attorney who filed a brief containing numerous non-existent cases. The filing attorney admitted that he hired a freelance attorney (through the legal service “LAWCLERK”) to draft a response to an order to show cause and that he did not read the caselaw or verify the cases cited by the freelance attorney before filing the brief. The court ruled that the attorney had “violated Rule 11(b)(2) by (i) improperly delegating his duties to another attorney by submitting that attorney's work without adequately reviewing it and verifying its accuracy, (ii) submitting a response to the [order] that cited non-existent cases, and (iii) cited case law that does not support [the] stated proposition.” The court imposed various sanctions on the attorney including a fine of $1,500, sending a copy of the order to LAWCLERK, completing a one-hour CLE course on AI and legal ethics, self-reporting to both New Mexico and Texas state bars disciplinary boards, and reporting the freelance attorney to the New York state bar disciplinary board. |
| Applies to AI Used for Filings/Drafting | ||||
| Court-Imposed Consequences – Attorneys/Law Firms | ||||
| D.N.M. – Judge William P. Johnson | 2/15/2024 | Any AI | Any AI Usage | In Morgan v. Cmty. Against Violence, Judge Johnson cautioned a pro se plaintiff in October 2023 who “cited to several fake or nonexistent opinions” that “any future filings with citations to nonexistent cases may result in sanctions such as the pleading being stricken, filing restrictions imposed, or the case being dismissed.” 2023 WL 6976510. Then, in its January 2024 order, after finding that the plaintiff had submitted “additional citations to ‘hallucinated’ cases,” the court dismissed the plaintiff’s claims with prejudice, citing both the court’s inherent sanctioning authority as well as the fact the alleged legal and factual matters are “totally devoid of any legal merit.” 2024 WL 218410. The court denied plaintiff’s ensuing motion for reconsideration in February 2024, and further ordered the plaintiff to show cause why the Court should not escalate sanctions to further prohibit her from entering new filings without legal representation, citing her “[m]eritless complaints, citations to hallucinated cases, a failure to adhere to filing deadlines, and a violation of the local rules.” 2024 WL 639860. |
| Applies to AI Used for Filings/Drafting | ||||
| Court-Imposed Consequences – Parties |
New Mexico
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