Introduction
“Verify every citation. Validate every proposition. Ensure the integrity of every filing.”
That is Judge JaPaul J. Harris’s closing instruction in a forceful special concurrence released November 2, 2026. His subject is a lawyer’s failure to check legal work generated by artificial intelligence (AI). His warning reaches a problem every litigant should understand: a real case can be cited for words it never said and a rule it never established.
We encountered that problem in Stevenson v. Stevenson. Judge Kevin M. Miller’s December 21, 2021 discovery order attributed a sweeping privilege quotation to In re Lawrence. The quotation does not appear in that opinion. It helped explain a ruling that denied our motions to compel discovery.
Harris’s concurrence supplies a direct standard for assessing that kind of error. The important question is whether the cited source actually supports the words and legal rule attributed to it.
The winning party’s lawyer still had to answer for false authority
The new decision is Safe Homes Saint Paul v. City of St. Paul, A26-1439, issued as a precedential opinion. Chief Judge Jennifer L. Frisch wrote the majority opinion; Judges Elise Larson and Harris joined the panel. The court affirmed Ramsey County District Judge Mark Ireland’s order requiring the city to place a tenant-repair initiative on the November 3 ballot.
The majority held that, when a ballot initiative meets the procedural requirements, judicial review before an initiative becomes law is limited to whether the proposed ordinance would be unlawful on its face. The city had not established a basis to keep this initiative off the ballot. That ruling permitted the vote; it did not resolve every dispute that might arise from a future application of the ordinance. Opinion, pp. 8, 22.
Harris agreed with the majority’s reasoning and result. He wrote separately because Safe Homes’ lawyer—the lawyer for the prevailing respondents—had submitted unverified AI-generated material.
The majority’s ballot-initiative holding is binding precedent. Harris’s separate concurrence can be cited for its persuasive reasoning; it does not itself establish a binding rule. Its placement alongside a precedential ruling may bring his warning to a wider audience of lawyers and judges.
“By his own admission, counsel for Safe Homes used artificial intelligence (AI) in drafting respondent’s brief and then filed it without verifying the cited legal authorities. The result was multiple misrepresentations of law to this court.”
—Harris concurrence, CS-1.
The opinion identifies Safe Homes’ counsel as Steven T. Appelget. Harris reports that counsel acknowledged the AI-generated inaccuracies, admitted failing to verify them, and accepted responsibility. Winning the appeal did not erase that failure.
False AI citations can involve real cases
The errors Harris identifies were more subtle than invented case names. They involved real decisions carrying inaccurate quotations or misrepresented holdings.
First, Safe Homes’ brief attributed the phrase “could never lawfully become part of the city charter” to Bicking v. City of Minneapolis, quoting State ex rel. Andrews v. Beach. Harris explains that neither decision contains that phrase. Counsel reported the error on September 16, five days after filing the principal brief.
Second, the brief said Graco, Inc. v. City of Minneapolis rejected the theory that an ordinance is preempted merely because it “adds a requirement absent from the statute.” Harris explains that Graco quoted that language in discussing another case but did not reject the proposition. Counsel reported this error on October 11, the day before oral argument. Harris concurrence, CS-1 n.2.
One error put words into an opinion. The other misrepresented what an opinion did with a legal proposition. Both could survive a superficial check confirming that the cited cases exist.
Harris addressed that distinction expressly:
“The use of real legal authorities in counsel’s brief—as opposed to ‘hallucinations’ featuring fictitious cases—does not lessen the violation because his failure to verify the AI output resulted in a submission of false quotations and misleading legal arguments before this court.”
—Harris concurrence, CS-2 n.3.
That passage is central to the comparison with our case. Finding Lawrence in a legal database would not validate Miller’s quotation. Verification requires reading what Lawrence actually says.
The harm extends beyond a bad citation
Harris acknowledged counsel’s admissions without treating an apology as a cure:
“I appreciate counsel’s candor in acknowledging his improper reliance on AI, but candor does not excuse what occurred in this appeal. His conduct imposed real costs on the court.”
—Harris concurrence, CS-2.
Those costs included investigating the suspected problems, coordinating a response, and protecting the orderly conduct of the appeal. Harris then stated the institutional harm plainly:
“I write to reiterate, in the clearest terms, that submitting fabricated authority or other false content in a judicial proceeding undermines the integrity of the judicial process.”
—Harris concurrence, CS-5.
Even catching the errors consumes resources that belong to the public:
“Notwithstanding the ability of Minnesota courts to identify and disregard fabricated authority, I am deeply troubled by the increased necessity of diverting precious public resources from the essential judicial function of deciding cases based on the rule of law.”
—Harris concurrence, CS-5.
Quoting the court’s earlier decision in Ally Bank v. Ngouambe, Harris reiterated that submitting incorrect, misleading, or nonexistent content is:
“improper, unacceptable, and an abuse of the judicial process.”
—Ally Bank, quoted in the Harris concurrence, CS-5.
For litigants, the danger includes what happens when an inaccurate proposition is accepted. A false quotation can become the explanation for denying access to evidence. The person challenging it must then spend time and money showing that the supposed authority never said what the court attributed to it.
What Judge Miller attributed to Lawrence
In our case, Miller denied three motions to compel discovery in his December 21, 2021 order. On page 13, he wrote:
The Court in In re Lawrence held that “Conversations amongst joint defendants are privileged and as such the subject of those conversations will not be disclosed,” shielding co-parties conversations by means of the attorney-client privilege.
—Stevenson, Doc. 154, p. 13; HTML reading edition.
The quoted sentence is absent from Lawrence. The actual opinion addresses control and waiver of attorney-client privilege when an attorney represents multiple clients. Its syllabus states:
“When an attorney represents more than one client related to a matter, the clients hold a joint attorney-client privilege. Waiver of a joint attorney-client privilege requires consent by all joint clients.”
—In re Lawrence, syllabus (PDF p. 1).
In ordinary terms, Lawrence addresses who controls an established privilege and who must consent to giving it up. That is different from saying conversations are privileged simply because the participants are joint defendants.
The distinction remains important even when defendants share counsel, as the defendants did in our case. Sharing a lawyer does not turn every conversation between clients into a request for legal advice or a discussion of protected advice.
Lawrence itself expressly reserved the underlying question about the communications before it:
“We have not been asked to address, and this decision should not be construed to reach, the assumption that each of the transferred communications sought or rendered legal advice.”
Miller’s attribution thus gave Lawrence a broader holding than the opinion supplied. The error appeared in a signed order denying discovery, where readers would reasonably expect the court’s statement of appellate law to be accurate.
The interrogatory source and notice to the court
The sentence attributed to Lawrence came directly from defendants’ answers to our interrogatories. Doc. 504, p. 32, ¶241. It was their own discovery position, presented in the order as an appellate holding. Attorneys Ross Tentinger and Kirsten Hansen represented the defendants and should have been familiar with those responses. The original order identifies both as defense counsel. Doc. 154, p. 1.
We expressly notified Judge Miller through our counsel on January 7, 2022—seventeen days after his original order. Our attorney, Matthew J. Schaap, filed a letter addressed to Miller requesting permission to seek reconsideration. On page 2, the letter stated: “But the quote is not in the Lawrence decision.” It also explained that the sentence was not the holding of Lawrence and had appeared in defendants’ briefing. Doc. 166, pp. 1–2 (letter excerpt).
Ross Tentinger responded on January 10, copying Kirsten Hansen by eService. His letter addressed pre-litigation communications without correcting the false Lawrence attribution. Doc. 167, p. 1. Miller’s January 18 denial expressly acknowledged both letters. It clarified that his common-interest ruling would not apply to pre-litigation communications, without addressing the quotation attributed to Lawrence. Doc. 169, p. 1.
I personally pointed out the Lawrence misrepresentation to both Attorney Tentinger and Attorney Hansen during my February 24, 2022 deposition. The court-record reference is Doc. 388, Exhibit 21, deposition transcript pages 173:25–179:21.
I later raised the same false attribution in my own sworn declarations filed with the court on July 26 and September 9, 2024. Doc. 504, pp. 32–33, ¶¶238–251; Doc. 527, p. 24, ¶¶118–120.
Neither attorney corrected the false attribution. In Safe Homes, counsel reported the first quotation and citation error just five days after filing the brief, supplied the correct quotation, later identified a second error, and accepted responsibility. Harris concurrence, CS-1 n.2 and CS-2. In our case, the false Lawrence attribution remains uncorrected more than four years after our January 7, 2022 written notice to the court and my February 24, 2022 personal notice to both defense attorneys.
The later explanation narrowed; the disputed discovery stayed closed
We requested reconsideration three times. Miller’s December 2022 order records that defendants clarified that they would not assert privilege over pre-litigation communications. Doc. 366, p. 7. In that same order, issued after the Minnesota Supreme Court recognized a limited common-interest doctrine in Energy Policy Advocates v. Ellison, Miller rejected the proposition that joint representation automatically protected every subsequent conversation.
Miller said the defendants’ argument went “slightly too far.” His order recognized that people can engage in gossip based on information learned from an attorney without furthering a joint legal strategy. Doc. 366, pp. 27–28.
Yet he still denied the requested discovery. On page 30, he predicted that privileged discussions “likely constitute most or all of the relevant communications.” Miller made that prediction without reviewing the withheld post-litigation communications, which had never been submitted to the court. He relied on earlier communications and the surrounding circumstances, then declined to require the process of identifying relevant communications and asserting individual privilege claims, reasoning that the burden would be disproportionate. Doc. 366, pp. 30–31.
The distinction is concrete: the court eventually narrowed the privilege analysis, while access to the disputed post-litigation communications remained blocked. That narrowing did not correct the original claim that Lawrence contained the quoted sentence or established the holding attributed to it.
Harris’s standard requires checking the proposition
Harris’s concurrence recognizes AI’s potential to improve efficiency and access to justice. He locates responsibility in the person using its output:
“The central issue is not the use of AI, but the failure to verify the accuracy of the resulting work product.”
—Harris concurrence, CS-5.
And he makes clear that changing the source of the words does not transfer responsibility:
“An attorney who submits a brief to this, or any other, court remains responsible for the accuracy of its representations, whether they originated with the lawyer, a colleague, or an algorithm.”
—Harris concurrence, CS-9.
His practical instruction goes beyond checking case names, reporter numbers, and links:
“Before filing any documents with a court, attorneys must check that every citation is accurate and that each cited source actually supports the proposition for which it is cited.”
—Harris concurrence, CS-9.
Applied to Miller’s order, that check is straightforward. Open Lawrence. Search for the attributed quotation. Read the holding. Read the express reservation about whether the communications sought or rendered legal advice. Then compare those passages with the categorical statement presented in the order.
Harris addresses lawyers’ professional obligations. The same question reaches judges and the law clerks who assist them: how carefully must they check the authority used to decide what evidence a litigant may obtain?
Law clerks have their own responsibilities in that process. Minnesota’s Court Employee Code of Ethics, §VI.A, requires employees to perform their public duties diligently and impartially. For a law clerk researching authorities or helping draft an order, diligence includes checking quotations and stated holdings against the original decisions. The judge remains responsible for supervising that work and personally deciding the matter.
The same accuracy must reach judicial orders
A brief asks a court to act. An order exercises the court’s power. An unsupported proposition can cause harm at either stage; once adopted in an order, it can govern the parties’ access to evidence and shape the record available for later review.
Harris’s concern about public resources is therefore only part of the picture. Litigants also bear the cost of finding errors, presenting the actual sources, seeking reconsideration, and continuing a case after discovery has been denied.
In Safe Homes, the appellate court recognized the inaccurate authority and decided the merits using its own legal analysis. The concurrence publicly identified the verification failure. The opinion does not impose a sanction or announce a disciplinary referral against Appelget.
Harris’s warning leaves a direct accountability question: why did the two defense attorneys and Judge Miller himself leave the false Lawrence attribution uncorrected in our case? Our counsel expressly identified the problem to Miller in January 2022; I personally identified it to Tentinger and Hansen the following month. We requested reconsideration three times. Yet the false attribution remains in the signed discovery order, and access to the disputed communications stayed blocked.
Harris ends with an instruction that deserves to travel with every legal citation, including those in judicial orders:
“Verify every citation. Validate every proposition. Ensure the integrity of every filing. Technology may assist, but responsibility for the work remains with the attorney.”
—Harris concurrence, CS-10.
The public should be able to expect the same care when a judge signs the ruling.
Sources and record locators
- Safe Homes Saint Paul v. City of St. Paul, A26-1439 (Minn. App. Nov. 2, 2026): majority pp. 1–22; Harris special concurrence CS-1–CS-10 (PDF pp. 23–32).
- Stevenson Doc. 154, December 21, 2021 discovery order, especially p. 13.
- Stevenson Doc. 166, January 7, 2022 reconsideration letter, pp. 1–2 (letter excerpt; research enclosures omitted).
- Stevenson Doc. 167, January 10, 2022 defense response, p. 1 (complete filing).
- Stevenson Doc. 169, January 18, 2022 denial, especially p. 1 (complete filing).
- To verify these filings in the court record, open MCRO Case Search, select Case Number, and enter 56-CV-20-2928. In the Register of Actions, locate index 166 (January 7, 2022), index 167 (January 10, 2022), and index 169 (January 18, 2022). MCRO Document Search also offers document searches by case number and filing date.
- Stevenson Doc. 388, Exhibit 21: Craig Stevenson’s February 24, 2022 deposition, transcript pages 173:25–179:21 (court-record locator for the author’s account of notifying both defense attorneys).
- Stevenson Doc. 504, Craig Stevenson’s declaration filed July 26, 2024, pp. 32–33, ¶¶238–251 (public redacted version); Doc. 527, supplemental declaration filed September 9, 2024, p. 24, ¶¶118–120.
- In re Lawrence, 954 N.W.2d 597 (Minn. App. 2020), especially the syllabus (PDF p. 1) and the reservation on p. 11.
- Stevenson Doc. 366, December 6, 2022 order, especially pp. 7, 27–31, including the defendants’ clarification about pre-litigation communications.
- Energy Policy Advocates v. Ellison, 980 N.W.2d 146 (Minn. 2022), recognizing the common-interest doctrine for qualifying, otherwise privileged communications.
- Minnesota Judicial Council Policy 318, Court Employee Code of Ethics, §VI.A, p. 4.
- Minnesota Code of Judicial Conduct, Rules 2.5(A), 2.9(A)(3), and 2.12(A) and comment [1].
