World · North America · 4 hrs ago
Judge Dismisses Los Angeles Film School Whistleblower Lawsuit
A judge dismissed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Los Angeles Film School over alleged student loan fraud.
Former school executives Ben Chaib and Dave Phillips accused the school of paying outside vendors to give graduates short-term jobs and boost its job-placement figures.
Schools must show at least 70% of graduates find work in their chosen field to qualify for federal student aid.
The judge ruled that the alleged conduct fell outside the six-year time limit for bringing the claims.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer was fined $5,000 after a filing prepared with ChatGPT cited one nonexistent case and two irrelevant cases.
The case was dismissed with prejudice, so it cannot be filed again.
A judge dismissed with prejudice a whistleblower lawsuit accusing the Los Angeles Film School of inflating its job-placement figures.
Judge Stanley Blumenfeld ruled that the alleged conduct occurred outside the six-year statute of limitations.
The suit was brought by former admissions vice president Ben Chaib and former career advancement vice president Dave Phillips.
The judge also fined attorney Mark Kleiman $5,000 after finding that a filing he submitted contained citations to a nonexistent case and irrelevant cases.
Phillips said he drafted the filing using ChatGPT and gave it to Kleiman.
- Who
- Former Los Angeles Film School executives Ben Chaib and Dave Phillips brought the lawsuit. Judge Stanley Blumenfeld dismissed it.
- What
- A whistleblower lawsuit alleging the school inflated graduate job-placement figures was dismissed with prejudice.
- When
- The ruling was issued on a Friday; the article was published on October 26, 2026.
- Where
- Los Angeles, California.
- Why
- The judge ruled that the alleged conduct occurred outside the six-year statute of limitations.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
The plaintiffs filed a brief that contained a nonexistent case and two real but irrelevant cases.
Judge Stanley Blumenfeld dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice and fined attorney Mark Kleiman $5,000.
- Plaintiffs
- Ben Chaib and Dave Phillips
- Statute of limitations
- Six years
- Attorney fine
- $5,000
- Federal student-aid benchmark
- At least 70% of graduates must find work in their chosen field
- School settlement
- $1 million with the Department of Education
What people are saying
Kleiman filed an obviously deficient brief that he had not even fully read and for which he did not check whether the citations were to real cases — let alone that they supported the brief’s assertions — despite knowing that his nonlawyer clients had prepared the brief using AI
to focus strictly on the appearance of compliance