DoNotPay Inc., an AI-driven subscription platform providing a broad range of legal services, has managed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a proposed class action mounted by an Illinois law firm. The said firm, MillerKing LLC, asserts that DoNotPay falsely advertised its services, claiming that the tech startup isn’t licensed to dispense legal advice.
The case was decided in favor of the tech firm after the US District Court for the Southern District of Illinois found the lack of satisfactory evidence proving that DoNotPay had caused any tangible harm to MillerKing’s business endeavors. The court thus emphasized that MillerKing did not demonstrate the primary tenets required to establish their legal standing. Specifically, they did not prove that they had suffered any direct business losses, such as lost revenues or clients withholding patronage as a direct result of the alleged conduct by DoNotPay.
DoNotPay managed to escape the class action, at least for the moment, by asserting that MillerKing’s allegations fail to put forward any demonstrable injury suffered by the law firm. In other words, as Justice Antonin Scalia would put it, “What’s the injury?”
In the complex intersection of law and artificial intelligence, this case underscores some of the challenges faced by both established law firms and innovative tech companies. And it also highlights the crucial role that the courts play in defining legal and ethical parameters for such interactions.
For further reading, DoNotPay’s temporary evasion of the class action lawsuit brought by MillerKing LLC can be studied in more detail here.