Background
Kimberly Scott, an African American woman employed by Starbucks in Chicago, filed racial-discrimination charges with the Illinois Department of Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after Starbucks disciplined her following workplace incidents involving the misgendering of and verbal confrontations with a coworker. The EEOC dismissed her charge and issued a right-to-sue letter on August 8, 2022.
Scott did not send the EEOC determination to the Department until January 30, 2023. The Department ultimately dismissed her charge for lack of substantial evidence. On administrative review, the Illinois Human Rights Commission sustained the dismissal because Scott had not submitted the EEOC determination within the 30-day period required by the Illinois Human Rights Act. The Commission also concluded that the charge lacked substantial evidence.
During the judicial-review proceedings, Starbucks and the agencies identified numerous false statutory quotations, nonexistent authorities, fabricated case quotations, and unsupported propositions in briefs filed by Scott’s attorney, Mason Cole. Cole acknowledged using ChatGPT but asserted that he had attempted to verify its output; his response to the appellate court’s show-cause order itself contained additional citation and quotation errors.
The Court’s Holding
The appellate court affirmed the Commission’s order. It held that the statutory requirement to submit the EEOC determination to the Department within 30 days of receiving it was jurisdictional. Because Scott supplied the determination 175 days after it was issued, the Department lacked jurisdiction to investigate her discrimination charge. The court therefore upheld dismissal without needing to disturb the Commission’s alternative substantial-evidence determination.
The court declined respondents’ request to strike Scott’s brief and dismiss the appeal because the record and governing law still permitted meaningful review. It nevertheless held that Cole willfully violated Illinois Supreme Court Rules 341(h)(5) and 375(a) by submitting inaccurate statutory quotations and persisting in those misstatements after respondents identified them. It also found his appellate arguments frivolous under Rule 375(b) because central arguments rested on fabricated statutory language and false or unsupported legal authorities.
The court imposed sanctions on Cole, emphasizing that attorneys remain responsible for personally reviewing and verifying AI-generated work. It further concluded that the fabricated authorities implicated professional duties of competence, candor, and truthfulness and unnecessarily consumed the opposing parties’ and the court’s resources.
Key Takeaways
- A complainant who dual-files with the EEOC and the Illinois Department of Human Rights must provide the Department with the EEOC’s determination within 30 days of receiving it; failure to do so deprives the Department of jurisdiction.
- An appellate court may decide an appeal despite briefing violations when the record and governing law still allow meaningful review, but counsel may be sanctioned separately for those violations.
- Attorneys are accountable for AI-assisted filings and must personally verify every quotation, citation, and legal proposition; the acceptable number of false citations is zero.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that the 30-day submission requirement is a jurisdictional prerequisite, not a procedural formality that an agency’s later investigation can cure. Employment counsel handling dual-filed discrimination charges should independently track the deadline for transmitting an EEOC determination to the Illinois Department of Human Rights.
The opinion also adds to the growing body of decisions imposing sanctions for AI-generated legal hallucinations. It makes clear that claimed reliance on a sophisticated AI subscription, inexperience in appellate practice, or an asserted verification process does not excuse filing nonexistent authorities, fabricated quotations, or misstatements of current law.