Gemini on Question 48, Sep 19

Varghese v. China Southern Airlines Co., Ltd., 925 F.3d 1339 (11th Cir. 2019) is not good law because it is not a real case.

This citation is actually one of the most famous examples of an "AI hallucination" in legal research. It is a completely fabricated case generated by ChatGPT.

The Origin of the Fake Case:
In early 2023, a personal injury lawyer named Steven Schwartz used ChatGPT to conduct legal research for a brief in Mata v. Avianca, Inc., a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. His client was suing the airline for an injury, but the two-year statute of limitations under the Montreal Convention had expired.

Schwartz asked ChatGPT to find case law showing that the Montreal Convention's strict two-year statute of limitations could be tolled (paused) under state law. Because no such case law exists (the Montreal Convention's time limit is notoriously strict and generally cannot be tolled), ChatGPT invented several fake cases to satisfy his prompt—the most prominent being Varghese v. China Southern Airlines.

The Fake Holding:
Because the case does not exist, there is no real holding to quote. However, when the opposing counsel and Judge P. Kevin Castel realized they could not find the case in any legal database, the judge ordered the plaintiff's attorneys to provide a copy of it. The lawyer went back to ChatGPT, which happily generated a completely fictitious six-page judicial opinion, which the lawyer then filed with the court.

The AI-generated "opinion" submitted to the court purported to hold that the Montreal Convention's two-year time limit for bringing a lawsuit could be paused (tolled) under certain circumstances. A portion of the fabricated text submitted to the court read:

"The issue before us is whether the Montreal Convention’s two-year statute of limitations is subject to tolling ... We hold that it is."

It went on to falsely claim that appellate courts have allowed tolling under the Montreal Convention when state law provisions apply, which is completely contradictory to established international aviation law (such as the actual U.S. Supreme Court precedent).

The Aftermath:
The submission of Varghese and five other fake cases (Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Shaboon v. Egyptair, etc.) resulted in a highly publicized sanctions hearing. Judge Castel ultimately sanctioned the attorneys $5,000 for submitting fake AI-generated case law and failing to verify their citations.

If you are researching the statute of limitations under the Montreal Convention, be aware that Article 35 establishes a strict two-year limit that courts universally rule is an absolute condition precedent to suit, not subject to state-law tolling.