Yasiel Puig, AI-Hallucinated Citations, Gambling, and Libel

From an L.A. Superior Court order earlier this month in Yasiel Puig Valdes v. All3 Media, LLC:

In reply, Moving Defendants contend that Plaintiff’s opposition should be stricken for citing fabricated cases. Upon review of Plaintiff’s opposition, the court confirms that Plaintiff improperly cited to “Edwards v. Hearst Corp. (1991) 53 Cal.3d 30, 43″ and “Heath v. San Joaquin Comm. Hosp. Dist. (1993) 15 Cal.App.4th 708, 713-14″. (Opp., at p. 5.) These cases apparently do not exist. At the hearing, the Plaintiff’s counsel confirmed that those citations do not exist and appeared when Plaintiff’s counsel sought the assistance of ChatGPT to assist him in filing the Opposition.

Moreover, Plaintiff filed an ex parte application “to correct” errors in his Opposition. The court denied the motion as well as the request to strike the Opposition and alerted the parties that this conduct would be referred to the Chief Trial Counsel of the State Bar of California. As aptly stated recently by Judge Carolyn Caietti concerning a similar issue, at first glance, “this conduct is contrary to the rules of professional responsibility and is the type of conduct that erodes trust in the legal profession.” The court is keenly aware that “relying on fabricated legal authority is sanctionable” but believes that officials of the State Bar are better equipped to appropriately investigate this matter and highlight the issue to all counsel concerning the consequences of using this type of technology.

And here’s the court’s ruling dismissing Puig’s underlying libel claim:

Plaintiff alleges that Defendants knowingly and falsely accused Plaintiff of “awaiting trial for his gambling charges” through an on-screen text (“end card”) displayed in the series Rich & Shameless, Season 2, Episode 8 titled “Dirty Moneyball: Cuba’s Ransomed Stars” (“Alleged Defamatory Episode”)….

According to the Complaint,

Plaintiff was actually charged with false statements and obstruction, in connection with an investigation by the United States government into illegal gambling ring. Plaintiff vigorously denies the actual charges against him. But in no uncertain [sic] has he ever been charged with the crime of gambling or any gambling related crime, as Defendants’ defamatory statement accuses. These allegations were entirely false.

The court, though, concluded that the episode’s statements were “substantially true”:

Civil Code section 47(d) provides that a fair and true report in, or communication to, a public journal of a “judicial proceeding” is an absolute privileged communication. In determining what a “fair report” is under Section 47(d), courts have permitted a certain degree of flexibility and “literary license” as long as the statements can reasonably be understood by the community as reporting on a judicial proceeding involving a plaintiff in a defamation case. Moreover, the statements are privileged under California Civil Code section 47(d) if the gist or the sting of the statements made in the report so closely relate to a judicial proceeding such that one cannot say that the average reader is being led to believe that the nature of the judicial proceedings are different than they are, or that a plaintiff is being accused of conduct outside of, or not contemplated by, the judicial proceedings. Only if the character of the publication deviates so substantially from the judicial proceeding that it produces a different effect on the reader will the privilege be suspended….

Moving Defendants have established that the alleged defamatory statement, i.e. Plaintiff is awaiting trial for his gambling charges, is protected by the Fair Report Privilege, and substantially true, making it nonactionable. [Defendants'] episode itself enlightened the viewer that Plaintiff had been charged with lying “to federal agents denying he placed bets through an illegal gambling operation in 2019.” …

Furthermore, … the court finds the facts of the crimes were accurately described in the Alleged Defamatory Episode and the charging instrument. For example, the First Superseding Indictment (“FSI”), which was filed on January 20, 2023, and charged Plaintiff in federal court with Obstruction of Justice and Making False Statements, provided the context that related the alleged federal criminal violations with the gambling organization being investigated. The FSI alleged Plaintiff began placing gambling bets with an “illegal book[] making business” and placed “899″ illegal bets through this business. When interviewed about his conduct with the “illegal book[] making business”, Plaintiff allegedly made false statements to a federal law enforcement officer by denying having spoken with individuals involved in the gambling organization and, specifically, by “falsely stat[ing] that he never discussed sports gambling” and withholding information about the involvement of other gambling associates concerning “bets made by [Plaintiff] and the payment of [Plaintiff's] gambling debts.”

Moving Defendants’ summary that Plaintiff was awaiting trial for gambling charges did not change the substance of Plaintiff’s underlying charges, which include making false statements but certainly portend his alleged, illegal gambling conduct. In fact, while the court finds that inserting the words “false statements” or “obstructing” to the end card would have presumably added more context, and the subsequent end card found in Exhibit No. 2 in Richert’s declaration certainly does that, the court finds the initial end card that contains the alleged defamatory statement does not change the view of a viewer that Plaintiff was involved in a judicial proceeding concerning illegal gambling.°

Jonathan Segal (Davis Wright Tremaine) represents defendants.

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