Man Forced to Concede His Lawyer Is “Not a Real Person”
May it please the Court," began the person pictured in the lower right corner of the image above, I come here today a humble pro se before a panel of five distinguished justices."
Ok, hold on," said one of those justices, probably having noticed there was no one standing behind the lectern. So whence cometh yon voice, she asked (or words to that effect)? It wasn't impossible that the person speaking was appearing via Zoom or Zoom-like portal. But he wasn't.
I'm sure he would have been glad to do so, but he does not exist.
The person to the right of the lectern (in the image) does exist, though he probably at least temporarily wished otherwise. That man was the appellant (and plaintiff), who was asking the court to overturn the judgment against him in an employment dispute. And it was him asking ... but not literally. He had asked for and received permission to present a video instead of arguing live, but the court seems to have assumed this was because he had a disability. If so it would have been a new disability, because the justice later noted that he had argued before the court in past cases. But it turns out he did not have a disability. He had used artificial intelligence" to create an avatar" that would deliver his argument for him. It was better at public speaking, he explained.
He did not inform the court of this innovation beforehand, and it was not pleased with the surprise.
Is that counsel for the case?" asked Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels.
I generated that," the appellant admitted. That's not a real person."
It would have been nice to know that when you made your application," the justice responded, before (as the AP described it) yelling across the room for the video to be shut off."
The appellant then proceeded on behalf of himself.
The issue seems to have been whether the appellant was a party to an employment contract that had an enforceable arbitration provision, and if you are hoping for a good arbitration joke here, or any arbitration joke at all, you hope in vain. As I understand it, the appellant argued that he technically had never signed the contract in question because there was trouble with the company's electronic platform." Or, if he did sign it, someone-or something-manipulated the other information he provided online.
As I recall (I did watch the whole argument, but not today, and I don't want to watch it again), the employer claimed the man had not been honest when filling out the contract. According to my notes, he told the court (after it dispelled his avatar) that he had explicitly refused to falsely represent that I had never been convicted of a felony," but after the dispute arose, someone or something changed those answers without my knowledge." (Emphasis added.)
There are about five negatives in there, but I interpret the statement to mean that he has, in fact, been convicted of a felony; that he did not disclose that on the form when asked; and is claiming that someone or something later changed his yes" to a no" so he could be falsely accused of lying. If any of that is incorrect, I blame him for using multiple negatives and deny any responsibility.
The court ruled against the appellant on April 17, but sadly the brief decision does not address his attempted use of an avatar. The argument itself was only about 10 minutes long in total, mercifully for everyone. You can watch it here (beginning at 19:22), but I wouldn't continue after the first 30 seconds or so, unless maybe you think arbitration is funny.
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