Cynthia White v. Walmart

Background

The case is an employment dispute in which Cynthia White alleges that Walmart wrongfully terminated her in retaliation for making a worker’s compensation claim. In the discovery phase, Walmart maintained that White’s August 2025 responses to interrogatories and requests for production remained incomplete, that those deficiencies persisted after substitution of counsel, and that Walmart sought court intervention after an attempted March 2026 conference call on the deficiencies did not proceed. Following an April 10, 2026 telephonic status conference, the court ordered further good-faith conferral and directed White to serve complete discovery responses by 27 April 2026 [ECF No. 37].

AI Interaction

The AI-related issue arose because plaintiff’s counsel told the court that he had uploaded Walmart’s discovery responses into an AI program, asked it to identify supposed deficiencies, and then copied and pasted the AI-generated output into an email to opposing counsel and the court. The court treated that conduct as improper exclusive reliance on AI in discovery, stressing that ‘AI is not a substitute for attorneys and litigants exercising independent judgment and oversight in the discovery process’ and that ‘Exclusive reliance on AI-generated discovery responses does not satisfy’ the duty to meet and confer in good faith [ECF No. 37].