Source: Bloomberg Law

A federal appellate panel in the Third Circuit sanctioned Joshua Ward, president and managing partner of J.P. Ward & Associates LLC, and ordered him to pay $14,636.50 to West Penn Allegheny Health System Inc. to reimburse attorney fees paid to Reed Smith LLP for responding to Ward’s conduct that the panel attributed to apparent artificial-intelligence “hallucinations.” The panel said the underlying disability-bias and wrongful termination suit had been correctly dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania and declined to revive it. The court observed misquotations in the filing and said it could not determine whether the errors were produced by AI, noting the citations referenced real cases on the same subject, and found Ward’s explanation—that he failed to check a law clerk’s work—insufficient to avoid sanctions.

The panel authored by Judge Stephanos Bibas also addressed the merits, holding that an employee’s advanced notice of a disability plus a request for accommodation are required to trigger an employer’s duty to consider reasonable accommodations. The court rejected former CT technician Cheryl Hileman’s claim that disclosing her Type 2 diabetes during a disciplinary investigation should have put West Penn on notice to inquire about accommodations before firing her for sleeping on the job. The opinion says Hileman never made a formal ADA accommodation or leave request, only mentioned diabetes when confronted about sleeping, and the employer offered a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for termination; Judges Cindy Chung and Jennifer Lee Mascott joined the ruling.