Phillips v. Parlade (judicial immunity and AI)

What happened

T. Matthew Phillips sued a Nevada state court judge in federal court. The allegation was that the judge "relied wholly on artificial intelligence to issue a judicial ruling, without any discretionary human thought," and had thereby "unlawfully delegated her official decision-making duties."

The theory is worth stating plainly because it will be tried again. It is not that the judge made an error. It is that the decision was not a judicial act at all, because no judge decided it.

What the court did

The court held that absolute judicial immunity bars the claim even assuming the allegation is true. Applying Mireles v. Waco and Meek v. County of Riverside, it wrote: "Issuing a judicial ruling is clearly a normal judicial function and the controversy at issue centered around Plaintiff's state court case pending before Defendant... The challenged conduct is therefore judicial in nature." The plaintiff offered no authority that the conduct was accompanied by a clear absence of all jurisdiction.

The case was dismissed with prejudice and the plaintiff's request for a judicial statement of decision was denied as moot. The court noted that objections to a state judge's actions can be raised on state appeal or through state disciplinary proceedings.

Where it stands

The order was filed August 12, 2026. No appeal was located as of September 17, 2026.

The obligation it engaged

This entry is here for what it forecloses rather than for what it requires. A litigant who believes a decision was produced by a system rather than by a person has no damages remedy against the decision-maker. The remedies are appeal and discipline, which is where the matters collected elsewhere on this site have in fact gone.

For an expert the parallel is instructive and unflattering. An expert has no immunity of this kind in most circumstances, and the delegation allegation that fails against a judge is the allegation most likely to succeed against an expert. Clause 2 of the Standard, non-delegation, states the obligation directly: the opinion, its basis, its limitations and the decision to render it are the expert's alone. A court will not entertain the claim that a judge delegated. It will entertain, and has entertained, the claim that an expert did.

Sources

• U.S. District Court, D. Nev. (via CourtListener RECAP) · August 12, 2026
  Order, Phillips v. Parlade, Doc. 16
• Reason (The Volokh Conspiracy) · August 17, 2026
  Judge's Allegedly Relying "Wholly" on AI in Order Is Covered by Judicial Immunity, Court Rules

What could not be confirmed

The underlying state court ruling was not obtained and the allegation that artificial intelligence was used was not adjudicated. The docket stamp on the order is August 12, 2026; secondary reporting is dated August 17, 2026.