Quebec judge fines man $5,000 for improper use of artificial intelligence in court

MONTREAL — A Quebec Superior Court judge has ordered a man to pay $5,000 for improperly using artificial intelligence to defend himself in court.

Jean Laprade was ordered to pay the fine after he was found to have cited expert quotes and jurisprudence that don’t exist.

The decision is the latest in a legal saga that began in 2019. It is related to a business deal that dates back to a time when Laprade was based in Guinea.

He was asking the Quebec court not to approve a 2021 decision by the Paris International Arbitration Chamber that ordered him to pay some $2.7 million for an airplane he claimed to have been awarded in a business deal.

However, the decision says Laprade’s defence included several pieces of information that had been fabricated by artificial intelligence, including non-existent citations and decisions.

The Quebec court upheld the decision against him, and ordered him to pay an additional $5,000 fine for the improper use of artificial intelligence.

“While the court is sensitive to the fact that Mr. Laprade’s intention was to defend himself to the best of his abilities using artificial intelligence, his conduct remains highly reprehensible,” Justice Luc Morin wrote in the decision dated in late September.

“He must bear alone all the opprobrium resulting from quotations ‘hallucinated’ by artificial intelligence on which he relied to generate his contestation.”

The judge also noted the need to put an end to Laprade’s legal saga, which spans six years, three continents, and “contains several elements worthy of a successful movie script.”

According to the decision, Laprade received three helicopters and an aircraft after the end of the business deal in Guinea. However, a mistake in the contract awarded him an aircraft that was far more valuable than the one agreed upon, which Laprade was accused of “diverting” to Quebec.

Laprade has consistently fought the efforts by two aviation companies to recover the plane, which is at the Sherbrooke airport under a seizure order.

But the Paris arbitration centre ruled against him in 2021, and his appeals have been rejected.

The documents Laprade submitted to the court included “eight instances of non-existent citations, decisions not rendered, references without purpose and inconsistent conclusions,” the decision noted.

It said Laprade apologized for the fact that the documents were “probably not perfect,” but said he wouldn’t have been able to properly represent himself in court without artificial intelligence.

Morin said in his decision that he wasn’t opposed to artificial intelligence, which he acknowledged is here to stay.

“Furthermore, any technological measure that can promote access to the justice system for citizens should be welcomed and supervised rather than being banned and stigmatized,” he wrote.

However, he said Laprade remains responsible for the documents he submits to court.

“A generous interpretation of his conduct leads the court to conclude that he wasted the time of several interveners, the applicants’ counsel and the court first of all,” he wrote. “A more severe interpretation could have led the court to conclude that Mr. Laprade knowingly attempted to mislead the court, a breach which falls at the other end of the spectrum of serious procedural breaches.”

The decision confirmed Laprade had to pay the nearly $2.7 million to two aviation companies over the loss of use of the seized airplane. Morin also confirmed that the plaintiffs could reclaim the plane.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 14, 2025.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press