A Palo Alto lawyer with nearly a half-century of experience admitted to an Oakland federal judge this summer that legal cases he referenced in an important court filing didn’t actually exist and appeared to be products of artificial intelligence “hallucinations.”

(Subscription required) A San Diego judge denied sanctions but condemned Tyson & Mendes for miscited and non-existent authority, factual misstatements, and unverified AI-sourced research, calling the conduct unethical and corrosive.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday held that a District Court judge erred in granting summary judgment against three plaintiffs who asserted that Circle K Stores Inc. passed them over for a promotion due to their ages, saying that the jurist wrongly concluded that they could not establish a prima facie case of discrimination because they never applied for the post.

(Subscription required) A Los Angeles jury awarded a $966 million verdict to the children of a woman who died from mesothelioma after using Johnson & Johnson’s talcum powder products.