LOS ANGELES—Lawyers who used generative artificial intelligence software to help write legal briefings in a case against Fenix International Limited, the parent company of OnlyFans.com, told a California federal district judge last Thursday that they should be allowed to make corrections to the briefings.
As AVN has previously reported, attorneys for Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP submitted official filings in a proposed class action that featured false or incorrect information and other artificial intelligence (AI) hallucinations to argue that OnlyFans is guilty of civil fraud and racketeering claims.
Hagens Berman attorney Robert B. Carey, a partner for his law firm out of Arizona, sued Fenix and a class of so-called "chatter" agencies on behalf of users who say they were misled into believing that they were speaking to adult content creators themselves, rather than people hired by the creator to keep up with inbox volumes.
Carey has attempted to make the case that his clients are victims of civil fraud and racketeering because these chatter agencies, which are used in common practice in the adult content creation space, left users exposed in very intimate digital environments.
As progress was made in the case, attorneys representing OnlyFans noted that attorneys for the plaintiffs relied on false or incorrect case citations. It turns out that one of the attorneys attached to the case was under significant personal stress and, being overextended, used a generative artificial intelligence tool in official filings with the court. Carey and his fellow attorneys motioned the judge for leave to make corrections to the impacted filings. Attorneys for OnlyFans opposed the motion for leave.
Now, Carey and his team are seeking to revitalize what is left of a potentially shattered case by citing their ethical duty as attorneys to make the corrections.
"Lead counsel [...] have been transparent with this Court and opposing counsel regarding the errors that occurred, fully taking the blame for those errors and trying to correct them by requesting leave to file corrective briefs as their ethical obligations require," Carey explains in his most recent filing that was seen by AVN.
"But Fenix has used that as an opportunity to cast aspersion on all of Plaintiffs’ counsel by misrepresenting, mischaracterizing, or drawing unfounded conclusions from what Plaintiffs’ counsel laid out," the Carey filing of Sept. 11 notes.
Here, counsel for the plaintiffs refers to opposition declarations and motions of opposition filed by lawyers for Fenix, arguing that they believe Hagens Berman violated key procedural rules that should merit sanctions on the attorneys led by Carey or a dismissal of the case.
AVN reported that the federal judge on the case has ordered Carey and his fellow attorneys to appear before him on Sept. 25 to determine if the AI hallucinations that the attorneys for OnlyFans detected merit sanctions against the plaintiffs, the counsel, or the class action itself.
The OnlyFans attorneys maintain that the plaintiffs should not be permitted to refile updated and corrected filings.
