Amarsingh v. Frontier Airlines (Tenth Circuit)

What happened

Kusmin L. Amarsingh appealed the dismissal of her claims against Frontier Airlines to the Tenth Circuit. She appeared without counsel. She is also a licensed Maryland attorney, and that combination is what makes the case worth recording.

She used ChatGPT to research and draft her appellate brief. Seven of the cases she cited could not be located at all, and other authority was misattributed. Frontier brought the problems to the court's attention and sought dismissal of the appeal as a sanction.

What the court did

The court affirmed the district court's judgment on the merits.

On sanctions it declined to dismiss the appeal, describing dismissal as a harsh sanction and disproportionate on these facts. The reasoning is worth noting because it is the reasoning most courts have adopted: the remedy should answer the conduct, and striking a litigant's appeal answers more than an unverified brief.

It ordered instead that Amarsingh pay $1,000 to Frontier within 30 days to offset its fees and costs, and file a sworn certification that she had done so. It then directed the Clerk's Office to transmit the order to the attorney disciplinary authority of the State of Maryland.

That last direction is the consequential one. She was not acting as anyone's counsel. She was a party representing herself, in a circuit where she is not admitted, in a case with no connection to her practice. The referral went to her licensing authority anyway.

Where it stands

The decision is an order and judgment rather than a published opinion. It is not binding precedent and is citable for persuasive value under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1 and Tenth Circuit Rule 32.1.

Whether the $1,000 was paid, and whether Maryland opened a proceeding, were not located as of September 17, 2026.

The obligation it engaged

The detail that carries this case is the status of the filer. Appearing for herself would ordinarily draw a measure of latitude from a federal court, and being a lawyer withdrew it. The court treated her professional license as attaching to what she filed, even though she filed it in her own cause.

The parallel to an expert is direct and unflattering. An expert holds a license, a certification or a board qualification in his own discipline, and the obligations that come with it do not switch off because the work is litigation support rather than practice. An engineer's board, an accounting body, a medical board: none of them requires a referral from a bar to act, and a court order recording that a professional filed unverified fabricated material is a document that travels.

The conduct engaged Clause 3 of the Standard, independent authority, and Clause 4, checkability before adoption. Both failures here were of the simplest kind. Seven case citations were checkable against a reporter, and the check would have taken minutes. Clause 4 asks the question earlier than that: before adopting any output, identify the specific thing against which it would be checked. For a citation the answer is obvious and the check is cheap, which is exactly why a court treats the omission as telling.

Sources

• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (via Justia) · February 9, 2026
  Amarsingh v. Frontier Airlines, Inc., No. 24-1391
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · February 9, 2026
  Opinion page, No. 24-1391

What could not be confirmed

Whether the $1,000 was paid and whether the Maryland disciplinary authority opened a proceeding were not located.