"Houston Housing Authority Cited over a Dozen Cases in a Legal Brief. Almost None of the Quotes Exist."

Houston Chronicle (R.A. Schuetz) reported yesterday:

In a lawsuit over whether a woman should have lost her housing subsidy, the Houston Housing Authority's lawyer asked a judge not to force the agency to prevent the woman's eviction while the case was being decided. The brief, submitted by a law firm that frequently represents cities and agencies in the Houston area, cited over a dozen cases in support of its argument.

The only problem? Almost none of the quotes actually exist, a Chronicle analysis shows….

The firm's managing attorney "said in an email that because the court required the brief to be filed within a short timeframe, the quick turnaround 'prevented our usual multi-attorney review.'"

But he did not address why 11 of the 13 cases directly quoted did not actually contain those quotes or why many did not seem related to what his firm had quoted them as saying. He also did not respond when asked if artificial intelligence, which is known to "hallucinate," or say things that are not true, had been used to draft the brief.