Gemini on Question 48, Sep 26

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.

It is an entirely fabricated case that was completely entirely invented by an AI (ChatGPT).

This fake citation is famous because it was at the center of Mata v. Avianca, Inc., a highly publicized 2023 sanctions case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In that case, attorneys Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca used ChatGPT to conduct legal research to argue that the two-year statute of limitations under the Montreal Convention could be equitably tolled (paused). ChatGPT hallucinated Varghese, along with several other fake cases (such as Shaboon v. Egyptair and Estate of Durden v. KLM), to support their argument. The lawyers submitted these citations in a brief to the court without verifying them.

When the opposing counsel and Judge Kevin Castel could not find the case, the judge ordered the lawyers to produce the actual court opinions. In response, the lawyers went back to ChatGPT and asked it for a copy of the Varghese opinion. ChatGPT obliged by generating a completely fake, multi-page judicial opinion, which the lawyers then submitted to the federal judge.

The Fake "Holding"
Because the case is a hallucination, it has no actual legal holding. However, the fake, AI-generated excerpt that the lawyers submitted to the court contained the following fabricated holding:

"We hold that the Montreal Convention's two-year statute of limitations is subject to equitable tolling in appropriate circumstances."

The fake opinion went on to state:

"The court reasoned that the Montreal Convention was drafted to protect passengers and to ensure that they are adequately compensated for injuries suffered during international air travel... Therefore, the court held that the statute of limitations could be tolled if the plaintiff could show that he or she had pursued the claim with reasonable diligence."

The Reality
In actual U.S. jurisprudence, the two-year time limit in the Montreal Convention is considered a strict "statute of repose," meaning courts overwhelmingly agree that it cannot be equitably tolled.

The lawyers who submitted this fake case were ultimately fined $5,000 by Judge Castel for acting in bad faith and failing to ensure the accuracy of their filings.