Factum Containing Fake Case Law Likely Generated By AI Submitted In Ontario Litigation (Ko v. Li)

ChatGPT and other generative AI (artificial intelligence) platforms have the potential to provide litigants with an efficient tool to research and understand the legal concepts and governing authorities that are applicable to their disputes. AI may provide valuable assistance in this regard. However, there have been several notorious cases, mainly in the United States, where parties have failed to verify whether or not the cases that have been generated by the AI tool are real. Courts depend on counsel appearing before them to provide the relevant—and real—cases that are relied upon when they advocate for their clients.

To date, there have been few reported incidents of misuse of AI in Canadian court proceedings. Perhaps inevitably, however, the issue of failing to verify the veracity of cases provided to a court has now arisen in an Ontario matter: Ko v. Li, 2025 ONSC 2766 (CanLII).