The court says case was ‘fundamentally tainted by the appellant’s conduct’
The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal dismissed a self-represented litigant’s challenge of a parenting time and child support order this week after he blamed an AI tool for multiple misrepresentations he made to the court.
The case is “not about a rogue AI tool,” Nova Scotia Court of Appeal Justice Robin Gogan wrote in her Aug. 12 ruling in Arbuckle v. Tanner.
Noting that the man had submitted AI-generated transcripts to the court, but pretended they were prepared by a certified court reporter, Gogan said he had offered “no good reason” for his misrepresentations, minimized his responsibility, and only apologized after he was caught.
“There are instances where non-compliance can be corrected and remedial orders an effective outcome,” Gogan said. However, the man’s non-compliance “was not apparent like a lone missed deadline or a missing document. It was not a missed step or an insufficiency. It was non-compliance well disguised as compliance.”
Gogan concluded that “the only disposition consistent with the interests of justice is to end an appeal fundamentally tainted by the appellant’s conduct.”
The case dates back to 2024, when the man and his partner separated and a trial court gave him parenting time for their young child and ordered him to pay child support. He appealed the order and represented himself in court.
As part of his appeal, he was required to file a transcript of the trial proceedings, as well as a motion with a so-called certificate of readiness confirming he had ordered the transcript from a certified court reporter. The man submitted a certificate of readiness to the appellate court, stating that he had ordered a transcript from a company called Videoplus Transcription Services. He later submitted the transcript to the court.
However, Lynn Connors of Anderson Sinclair, one of the lawyers representing the man’s ex-partner, discovered that the transcript was incomplete. Connors asked the appellate court to dismiss the appeal, but the court gave the man another chance to file a correct transcript.
After he filed another transcript, Connors found 39 discrepancies between the transcript and one that she had independently ordered. She contacted the transcriber named on both versions of the man’s transcript. The transcriber said she had not prepared or certified either.
Connors and her co-counsel, Daniel White, filed another motion to dismiss the case, arguing the man had likely faked the certifications on the transcripts he submitted. In late July, he admitted that he had used several AI tools to prepare the materials for his appeal, giving them access to case files on his computer.
“Unbeknownst to me during the assembly process, the AI hallucinated the formatting of the September and October transcripts,” the man wrote in an affidavit to the appellate court. He claimed that the AI tool had created a fake certification without his knowledge, pulling it from another transcript on his computer that had a legitimate certification.
“I did not instruct the AI to attach any certification, nor did I have the intention of inappropriately using [the transcriber’s] signature or fabricating a certified court record,” he wrote.
In her ruling, Gogan said that “without question,” the man’s submissions are not compliant with the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal’s rules.
While the man argued that dismissing his case would be an “extreme” and unnecessary response to his conduct, since he can easily procure legitimate, certified transcripts, Gogan disagreed.
The justice noted that even before this case, the man had a long record of unsuccessful litigation and “has taken much of this court’s time and resources on unmeritorious matters.”
“The mischief that occurred in this case implicates the integrity of the appeal process,” Gogan added. “It is in the interests of justice to protect the process for individual litigants and for the benefit of the administration of justice generally.”
Connors declined to immediately comment on the decision. Canadian Lawyer was unable to reach the appellant, who is self-represented, for comment.
