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FOR PUBLICATION
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
No. 24-11033
Non-Argument Calendar
PATRICK AKERLUND,
MICHAEL ALZATI,
ERIC W. ANDERSON,
MICHAEL G. BALLARD, JR., et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
ATLAS AIR, INC.,
FLIGHT SERVICES INTERNATIONAL, LLC,
Defendants-Appellees,
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cv-23519-KMM
Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and KIDD, Circuit Judges.
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2 Opinion of the Court 24-11033
GRANT, Circuit Judge:
A group of plaintiffs, employees in the commercial aviation
business, personally reject their companies’ pandemic-era policies
on masks, testing, and vaccination. The district court dismissed the
third amended complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction and
failure to state a claim, and we affirm.
The claims in this case are remarkably weak, at least as
pleaded. We are more candid than usual in this assessment because
the plaintiffs’ counsel Anthony F. Sabatini has not been candid with
us. Sabatini filed multiple briefs replete with fake and hallucinated
citations. Even after being warned. “Always a bad idea.” Chief
Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., 2023 Year-End Report on the Federal
Judiciary, at 6 (2023). By outsourcing his legal work to an AI
algorithm, Sabatini violated his ethical duties to both his clients and
this Court.
I.
Atlas Air is a commercial airline, and Flight Services
International hires contractors to staff Atlas Air’s flights. During
the Covid-19 pandemic, both companies required employees to
vaccinate against Covid-19, unless they obtained a religious or
medical exemption—in which case, they had to undergo periodic
testing and wear a mask on the job.
The plaintiffs say they object on religious grounds to what
they perceive as “a dangerous social and medical experiment.”
They explain that, among other things, their “conscience prohibits
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24-11033 Opinion of the Court 3
them from being inoculated with any experimental foreign
substance,” and that their religious rights were violated as a result
of “the Biden Administration’s goal of achieving universal
vaccination and to unlawfully acquire [their] personal, genetic
information.” And in their view, the companies’ accommodations
for religious objectors to the vaccination requirement were
unreasonable: monthly testing imposed “substantial burdens,” and
masks were “functionally useless” “symbols” that accomplished
“nothing more than political advertising.” Some plaintiffs say that
they “succumbed to the pressure” and took the vaccine; others
begrudgingly wore masks and tested. The complaint does not
allege that anyone lost their job, but does allege that some plaintiffs
were assigned to less desirable, lower-paying flights.
The plaintiffs assert that their employers’ Covid-19 protocols
led to a hostile work environment under Title VII; a Federal Food,
Drug, and Cosmetic Act violation; a federal constitutional
deprivation; a tortious invasion of privacy; a negligent disclosure
of private medical information; and an infliction of emotional
distress. The district court dismissed all claims against Flight
Services International and some claims against Atlas Air for lack of
personal jurisdiction, and the remaining claims against Atlas Air for
failure to state a claim.
II.
We review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a complaint
for lack of personal jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim. See
Carmouche v. Tamborlee Mgmt., Inc., 789 F.3d 1201, 1203 (11th Cir.
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2015); Quality Auto Painting Ctr. of Roselle, Inc. v. State Farm Indem.
Co., 917 F.3d 1249, 1260 (11th Cir. 2019) (en banc).
III.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(1)(A) offers personal
jurisdiction over a defendant “who is subject to the jurisdiction of
a court of general jurisdiction in the state where the district court
is located.” To meet that requirement, “the exercise of jurisdiction
must (1) be appropriate under the state long-arm statute and (2) not
violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
United Techs. Corp. v. Mazer, 556 F.3d 1260, 1274 (11th Cir. 2009).
“A plaintiff bears the burden of establishing a prima facie case of
personal jurisdiction over the non-resident defendant.” Jekyll
Island-State Park Auth. v. Polygroup Macau Ltd., 140 F.4th 1304, 1315
(11th Cir. 2025).
Exercising personal jurisdiction over Flight Services
International in this lawsuit would violate due process because
neither general nor specific jurisdiction is available in Florida for
this company.1
Those two concepts match their terminology. General
jurisdiction is broader, allowing a court “to hear any and all claims”
against an out-of-state company when its “affiliations with the State
1 We do not reach Atlas Air’s personal jurisdiction arguments because it
concedes that the district court may decide claims brought by employees who
work in Florida. As we explain in part IV, all claims against Atlas Air fail on
the merits.
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are so ‘continuous and systematic’ as to render them essentially at
home in the forum State.” Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v.
Brown, 564 U.S. 915, 919 (2011) (quoting Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington,
326 U.S. 310, 317 (1945)). Though general jurisdiction allows a
broad set of claims to be litigated, it is available only in relatively
narrow circumstances. See Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117, 137
(2014). A corporation’s “place of incorporation and principal place
of business are paradigm bases for general jurisdiction.” Id.
(alterations adopted and quotation omitted). Beyond that, only in
an “exceptional case” will a corporation’s operations in a forum be
“so substantial and of such a nature as to render the corporation at
home.” Carmouche, 789 F.3d at 1204 (quotations omitted).
Specific jurisdiction, on the other hand, “covers defendants
less intimately connected with a State, but only as to a narrower
class of claims.” Ford Motor Co. v. Mont. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 592 U.S.
351, 359 (2021). Specific jurisdiction attaches if the defendant
“purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities
within the forum State,” and there is “an affiliation between the
forum and the underlying controversy.” Hanson v. Denckla, 357
U.S. 235, 253 (1958); Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Ct. of Cal.,
San Francisco Cnty., 582 U.S. 255, 262 (2017) (quotation omitted).
Neither general nor specific jurisdiction is available here. To
start, Flight Services International is incorporated and
headquartered in Texas. The general jurisdiction inquiry
ordinarily ends here. Even so, the plaintiffs insist that the company
is “at home” in Florida because it sends employees to attend
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“annual or biannual” training sessions in Miami. That is not
enough. An employee’s “brief presence” in the forum state “for
the purpose of attending the training sessions” does not establish
general jurisdiction. See Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v.
Hall, 466 U.S. 408, 417–18 (1984).
The plaintiffs’ theory of specific jurisdiction likewise hinges
on Flight Services International’s training sessions in Miami. But
their claims do not “arise out of or relate to” these sessions. Ford
Motor Co., 592 U.S. at 359 (quotation omitted). The plaintiffs do
not so much as allege that any one of them ever traveled to Florida
to attend those training sessions while the vaccination requirement
was in place. Nor do they contend that anyone was barred from
attending those sessions because of their vaccination status. To the
extent any plaintiff was aggrieved, it was not in Florida.2
The district court was correct that it lacked personal
jurisdiction over Flight Services International.
IV.
We now turn to the plaintiffs’ claims against Atlas Air.
Because some of the plaintiffs work in the airline’s Florida facilities,
the district court had jurisdiction over at least those employees’
claims. But none are plausible.
2 Because the plaintiffs fail to establish a prima facie case for personal
jurisdiction, they are not entitled to jurisdictional discovery. Butler v. Sukhoi
Co., 579 F.3d 1307, 1314 (11th Cir. 2009).
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A.
The plaintiffs first allege that Atlas Air created a work
environment hostile to their religious beliefs, in violation of Title
VII. They say that Atlas Air’s “repeated attempts to coerce” them
into getting vaccinated constituted “unwelcomed harassment.”
To prevail on this claim, “the plaintiff is required to prove
that the defendant had a discriminatory intent or motive.” Watson
v. Fort Worth Bank & Tr., 487 U.S. 977, 986 (1988). But the plaintiffs
do not allege any facts indicating that Atlas Air intended to
discriminate against their religious beliefs. In fact, the allegations
suggest the opposite. Under its policy, Atlas Air exempted from its
vaccine requirement employees who professed a sincere religious
objection to the Covid-19 vaccine. Instead, they had to wear a
mask at work and test once a month.
The plaintiffs now seem to assert that these
accommodations are also hostile to their religion. The problem
with this argument is that there is nothing to back it up in the
pleadings. The plaintiffs do not allege any religious objections to
masks or tests—only political and logistical ones. Masks, they say,
are “functionally useless” “political symbols” that “serve no other
purpose than identifying ‘dissident’ employees.” And the plaintiffs
offer no real problem with testing, other than a generalized
complaint that it entails “substantial burdens.” What those
burdens are, and whether they are religious in nature, the plaintiffs
do not say. Nor do they allege that employees who received
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religious exemptions were treated any worse than those who
received medical exemptions.
Whatever one makes of the plaintiffs’ dislike of masks and
tests, they have alleged no facts signaling animosity from Atlas Air
toward their religious beliefs. The allegation that Atlas Air
harbored a discriminatory motive is not only conclusory, but
“wildly implausible.” Miller v. Donald, 541 F.3d 1091, 1100 (11th
Cir. 2008).
B.
The plaintiffs also bring claims under the Federal Food,
Drug, and Cosmetic Act, alleging that Atlas Air unlawfully required
its employees to take medical products authorized for emergency
use. See 21 U.S.C. § 360bbb-3. But they cannot sue to enforce such
claims; only the federal government can bring enforcement actions
under that statute. See 21 U.S.C. § 337(a); Buckman Co. v. Plaintiffs’
Legal Comm., 531 U.S. 341, 349 n.4 (2001).
C.
The plaintiffs also allege various constitutional harms,
attempting to sue under § 1983 and Bivens v. Six Unknown Named
Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). Of course,
§ 1983 allows suits against state officers, and Bivens, to the limited
extent it applies, is for suits against federal officers. So we need not
elaborate further on why these claims against Atlas Air—a private
company—fail. And even if we were to assume (though it would
be a stretch to do so) that Atlas Air qualifies as a state actor because
as a federal contractor it introduced its vaccine requirement to
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comply with President Biden’s Executive Order 14042, § 2, 86 Fed.
Reg. 50985 (Sept. 9, 2021), “recognizing a cause of action under
Bivens is a disfavored judicial activity.” Goldey v. Fields, 606 U.S. 942,
944 (2025) (quotations omitted). We decline to make the dramatic
Bivens extension that the plaintiffs request. See Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582
U.S. 120, 135 (2017).
D.
The plaintiffs also allege several state tort claims. The first
is that Atlas Air tortiously invaded their privacy by disclosing
private medical information—namely, vaccination status—to
company administrators in charge of enforcing Covid-19 protocols.
“In Florida, except in cases of physical invasion, the tort of invasion
of privacy must be accompanied by publication to the public in
general or to a large number of persons.” Steele v. Offshore
Shipbuilding, Inc., 867 F.2d 1311, 1315 (11th Cir. 1989); see also
Williams v. City of Minneola, 575 So. 2d 683, 689 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App.
1991). And publicity “requires that a matter be made public, by
communicating it to the public at large, or to so many persons that
the matter must be regarded as substantially certain to become one
of public knowledge.” Hunstein v. Preferred Collection & Mgmt.
Servs., Inc., 48 F.4th 1236, 1246 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc) (quotation
omitted). The plaintiffs do not allege sufficient facts on this score.
Indeed, their theory of publicity is even further afield than
the theory we rejected in Hunstein. There, we explained that the
defendant’s disclosure of personal information to a third-party
intermediary does not, by itself, satisfy publicity. Id. at 1247. Here,
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the plaintiffs allege that Atlas Air “circulate[d] the information
about which crewmembers (vaccinated or unvaccinated) would
qualify for certain flights involving company imposed COVID-19
restrictions.” In other words, Atlas Air disseminated employees’
vaccination status internally—to assign shifts and rearrange work
schedules based on compliance with the company’s vaccination,
testing, and masking rules. An internal email or memo disclosing
an employee’s medical information for legitimate work-related
reasons does not amount to public disclosure. That information
does not reach, nor is it sure to reach, the public. Id. The tortious
invasion of privacy claims were properly dismissed. 3
In a similar vein, the plaintiffs assert that Atlas Air
negligently disclosed their private medical information to the
public. But these negligence claims fail for the same reason: their
medical information did not reach, nor was it sure to reach, the
public.
We also reject the plaintiffs’ intentional infliction of
emotional distress claims. Those would require showing that Atlas
Air intentionally or recklessly caused “severe emotional distress”
through “extreme and outrageous conduct.” E. Airlines, Inc. v. King,
557 So. 2d 574, 575–76 (Fla. 1990) (quoting Restatement (Second)
of Torts § 46 (A.L.I. 1965)). The challenged conduct must “go
3 Separately, the plaintiffs arguably assert that Atlas Air’s masking rules
constituted compelled disclosure of one’s vaccination status. But the
complaint does not plausibly allege that an employee’s vaccination status
could be readily inferred from the fact that she is masked.
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beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as
atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” 4 Id. at
576 (quotation omitted).
Like many other employers at the time, Atlas Air required
certain precautions designed to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
But the fact that the plaintiffs disagree with the steps Atlas Air took
does not put the airline’s actions beyond all possible bounds of
decency. The district court correctly dismissed the plaintiffs’
intentional infliction of emotional distress claims.
V.
Though the filings in this case were substandard in a variety
of ways, we have saved the worst for last. The plaintiffs’ counsel
Anthony F. Sabatini’s filings are riddled with citations to
nonexistent, “hallucinated” cases. His opening brief relies on at
least eight such cases, including one purportedly decided by this
Court.5 After the defendants identified this problem, Sabatini
4 To the extent the plaintiffs allege negligent infliction of emotional distress
claims, they concede that Florida law generally requires a plaintiff to allege
“that the emotional stress suffered flowed from injuries sustained in an
impact.” Fernander v. Bonis, 947 So. 2d 584, 590 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2007)
(quotation omitted). That requirement is not satisfied here.
5 These include Doe v. Roe, 638 So. 2d 87 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994); Spilfogel v. Fox
Broadcasting Co., 792 So. 2d 1254 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001); Doe v. University of Miami,
2020 WL 7647634 (S.D. Fla. Dec. 23, 2020); Jewell v. New York Life Insurance Co.,
2018 WL 1792348 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 16, 2018); Lofton v. Kravitz, 672 So. 2d 591
(Fla. 4th DCA 1996); Tillery v. ATSI, Inc., 2005 WL 81628 (11th Cir. Jan. 14,
2005); Koutsouradis v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 427 So. 2d 1105 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983);
Weinstein v. City of North Bay Village, 977 So. 2d 703 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008); Draper USCA11 Case: 24-11033 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 07/10/2026 Page: 12 of 14
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acknowledged in his (untimely) proposed reply brief that those
citations were “erroneous or unverifiable,” and sought to
withdraw his reliance on eight listed cases. 6 At this point, things go
from bad to worse: the eight cases Sabatini “withdrew” did not
match a single one of the eight hallucinated cases in his opening
brief. And not only were they not the right cases—all eight were
also hallucinated.
We are far from the first court to see lawyers uncritically rely
on artificial intelligence software and submit briefs citing
nonexistent cases. See Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., 2023 YearEnd Report on the Federal Judiciary, at 5–6 (2023). The typical
response when this kind of violation is identified is some version of
an apology from the attorney, often with sanctions to follow. It is
rare to see the kind of blatant and repeated misconduct that
Sabatini has committed in this case.
The first rule of our profession is that a lawyer “shall provide
competent representation to a client”—“competent” in the sense
v. United Airlines, Inc., No. 22-cv-02985, 2023 WL 3002478 (D. Colo. Apr. 19,
2023).
6 These are Truong v. Waste Pro USA, Inc., 175 So. 3d 929 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015);
Marvin v. Dade County School Board, 2020 WL 603633 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 7, 2020);
Morrison v. Palm Beach County School Board, 2018 WL 6727067 (S.D. Fla. Dec.
21, 2018); Scott v. Eglin Federal Credit Union, 2022 WL 1558341 (N.D. Fla. May
17, 2022); Hansen v. Florida, 2022 WL 2980744 (M.D. Fla. July 28, 2022); Palmer
v. McDonald’s Corp., 2022 WL 413680 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 10, 2022); Negron v. School
Board of Miami-Dade County, 2021 WL 4948181 (S.D. Fla. Oct. 22, 2021). While
Koutsouradis v. Delta Air Lines, Inc. appears in both filings, the reply brief
attributes it to a different court.
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that it requires “legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and
preparation.” Model Rules of Pro. Conduct r. 1.1 (A.B.A. 1983). It
goes without saying that completely outsourcing one’s legal work
to artificial intelligence software is not competent. See A.B.A.
Comm. on Ethics & Pro. Resp., Formal Op. 512, at 3–4 (2024).
Doing so is a dramatic violation of the client’s interests.
But it does not stop there, because lawyers are also officers
of the Court. We expect that when lawyers submit briefs, they give
us their best view of what the law is, and how that law supports
their clients. We read those briefs carefully—not just because they
are the product of counsel’s time, effort, and skill, but because they
help us as we try to reach the right answer. All that is lost if a
lawyer decides that it is not worthwhile to do the work to persuade
us—if he is willing to sign his name on whatever a machine churns
out without so much as checking it for accuracy. We cannot do
our job the same way unless lawyers do theirs.
Whatever the merits of artificial intelligence, it is no
substitute for actual intelligence. Any “use of AI requires caution
and humility.” Roberts, 2023 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary,
at 5. When lawyers rely on AI tools, there is no way to get around
the obligation to verify that the software got it right, and that what
it got wrong will not end up in court filings. 7 By signing his name
7 AI algorithms are notorious for producing “outputs that echo users’ opinions
and beliefs, even when those views are incorrect.” Lujain Ibrahim et al.,
Training Language Models to Be Warm Can Reduce Accuracy and Increase
Sycophancy, 652 Nature 1159, 1162 (2026). This tendency presents a particular USCA11 Case: 24-11033 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 07/10/2026 Page: 14 of 14
14 Opinion of the Court 24-11033
on briefs filled with hallucinated citations—not once but twice—
Sabatini violated his professional obligations, both to his clients and
to this Court. If he thinks these claims are not worth the effort, he
should either tell his clients they fall short or advise them to hire
another lawyer—not file obviously insufficient pleadings and briefs
generated by AI tools. In a separate order, this Court, through the
Chief Judge, will refer the matter to the Committee on Lawyer
Qualifications and Conduct. See 11th Cir. Rules, Addendum 8, r.
2(C).
* * *
We AFFIRM the dismissal of the third amended complaint
for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim.
danger in legal filings, as one of a lawyer’s chief duties is to give his clients a
clear-eyed view of whether the law says what the client wants it to say.