The Friday apology came amid the plaintiffs' response to Amazon.com Services LLC's Jan. 27 motion for an order to show cause, requesting the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington order plaintiffs' counsel to explain how citation errors came to be included in a motion opposing a stay in the case.
Just Food Law attorney Maia C. Kats ran an early draft of the opposition brief through an AI system, according to the Friday memorandum, at which point an error was inserted.
"Counsel from Boies Schiller and JFL continued assiduously to rework and edit the draft, but no one caught the error," the memorandum stated. "At no point in the drafting process did attorneys from Boies Schiller use AI for drafting or research. However, Ms. Kats notified that she used AI in the draft."
On Friday, the plaintiffs' attorneys called their failure to catch the error "obviously a failure of process and inconsistent with Boies Schiller's professional standards and expectations for every submission to a court — AI or no AI."
Since 2023, Amazon shoppers have been pursuing fraud claims against the online retailer alleging it sold illicit drugs under the guise that they were dietary supplements. According to the proposed class, the supplements were not reviewed or preapproved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and lacked mandatory disclaimers.
The suit brings claims for implied breach of warranty and violations of California's Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law and Consumer Legal Remedies Act.
In its motion for an order to show cause last week, Amazon told the court that Boies Schiller had recently come under fire for a previous AI-generated error included in a separate, unrelated matter in September. Amazon said that, according to a filing in that matter, a Boies Schiller partner indicated the firm "would conduct an internal investigation to prevent any repeat conduct."
On Friday, plaintiffs' counsel acknowledged the previous incident, and affirmed that Boies Schiller had taken additional steps to avoid errors.
"Boies Schiller is committed to the responsible use of AI and — both before and especially after that incident — has adopted policies and implemented trainings to protect against the risks of the improper use of AI," the memorandum stated.
The Amazon shoppers requested that the court consider a revised version of the opposition motion, which removes the faulty citation.
In a reply brief on Monday, Amazon told the court the plaintiffs' revised motion is not free of citation errors.
"First, the 'corrected' version of the brief still twice cites the made-up subsection," Amazon said in the reply brief. "While this may be the result of human error, the citation's presence in the 'corrected' brief raises questions about ongoing gaps in rigor and a lack of attentiveness paid to the issue by plaintiffs' counsel."
Amazon further argued that the Friday response did not fully describe what each signatory's role was, what "controls" were in place to protect against AI errors and how those controls failed. Therefore, Amazon said, the court should still issue an order to show cause, compelling counsel for the proposed class to give a more thorough explanation.
The filings come as Amazon urges the court to pause the case in light of an anticipated rule change by the FDA.
Amazon first moved for a stay in January, arguing that in December, the FDA indicated that requirements mandating disclaimers must appear on "each panel" of a dietary supplement label were "misguided."
The FDA had determined the disclaimer requirement led to "counterproductive 'label clutter,'" Amazon said in its first stay motion. The December announcement came after industry lobbying to remove the requirement, following a May 2025 statement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that indicated the government was "planning the largest deregulatory effort in the history of the department," according to Amazon's motion.
The proposed class opposes the stay. In their revised opposition, the Amazon shoppers said their claims are founded on "bedrock federal standards" that the current administration cannot "retroactively erase."
Amazon counsel declined to comment, beyond referring to the reply brief, filed on Monday.
Counsel for the proposed class did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
The customers are represented by Maia Kats of Just Food Law PLLC, George Carpinello, Adam Shaw and Patrick Marris of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and Todd Maybrown of Allen Hansen Maybrown & Offenbecher PS.
Amazon is represented by Joshua Hill, Ariane Rockoff-Kirk, Roberto J. Gonzalez and Walter Brown of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP and Charles C. Sipos, Lauren J. Tsuji, Eric J. Weiss and Juliana L. Bennington of Perkins Coie LLP.
The case is Medal et al. v. Amazon.com Services LLC, case number 2:23-cv-01975, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
--Additional reporting by Adrian Cruz, Ben Adlin, Dorothy Atkins, Rachel Riley and Gina Kim. Editing by Alex Hubbard.
Update: This article has been updated to include information from Amazon's reply brief.
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