- Two parallel orders, both issued in the same June 2026 sitting.
- Witkins: petition dismissed entirely; petitioners had already added four more non-existent cases on resubmission.
- Aldridge: $500 fine, respondent permitted to resubmit corrected filings.
- Oregon is now the leading state-supreme-court precedent for the AI verification duty, alongside the federal Mata/Park-v-Kim line.
Oregon Supreme Court issues first state-supreme-court AI hallucination rulings.
The Oregon Supreme Court has become the first state supreme court to issue orders sanctioning AI-fabricated authority in filings. The court dismissed a mandamus petition entirely (Witkins v. McGreevy) and imposed a $500 fine with leave to correct in a parallel respondent's matter (Aldridge v. Tussing), reinforcing the post-Mata verification duty at the state-supreme-court level.
The lede. #
The Oregon Supreme Court has dismissed a petition supported by AI-generated fabricated case citations, becoming the first state supreme court to issue a sanctions order on the post-Mata verification doctrine.
What happened. #
On or around June 4, 2026, the Oregon Supreme Court issued orders in two separate matters that both involved filings containing fabricated case citations generated by a legal-AI assistant (identified in the OPB News reporting as "LegalAI"). In Witkins v. McGreevy, the court dismissed the mandamus petition entirely after the petitioners, when asked to resubmit corrected materials, added at least four further citations to non-existent cases. In Aldridge v. Tussing, the court imposed a $500 monetary sanction on a respondent whose filing contained similar fabricated authority, but permitted resubmission of corrected materials.
Why it matters. #
Until June 2026, the published post-Mata doctrine on AI hallucination had been almost entirely federal: Mata v. Avianca (S.D.N.Y. 2023), Park v. Kim (2d Cir. 2024), and the developing C.D. Cal. line including In re Lacey. Oregon's orders extend the verification duty to the state-supreme-court level. For multi-state practices, the practical effect is that the verification standard must be assumed to apply in every jurisdiction, not merely those that have spoken expressly. For firms with Oregon practice, the state-supreme-court precedent is now controlling on the verification question.
What to watch. #
Three downstream signals. First, whether the Oregon orders are followed in other state supreme courts within 90 days; the doctrinal logic is portable. Second, whether the Oregon State Bar issues an opinion or letter referencing the orders as authoritative for state-bar discipline purposes. Third, whether the published reasoning is supplemented with a fuller written opinion that would create a more detailed citable precedent. The IXSOR case-brief library tracks both orders: Witkins v. McGreevy and Aldridge v. Tussing.
Primary sources. #
- Oregon Supreme Court addresses AI falsehoods, OPB News (June 5, 2026)
- Oregon Rules of Professional Conduct (Rule 3.3 candor)
- Oregon Supreme Court appellate docket
News brief. Not legal advice. Dan Hughes is not an attorney; IXSOR does not provide legal services.