AI Hallucination Cases

Order to Show Cause is here.

The court found that nearly all caselaw cited in the appellant's supplemental brief could not be located and appears fictitious; the court suggested the use of an AI tool but chose to address the merits and issued a caution about reliance on such tools.

In an earlier order, following Show Cause proceedings, a magistrate determined that the counsel violated Rule 11(b)(2) by failing to verify the accuracy of the citations and imposed several sanctions:

1. "The pro hac vice status of Counsel shall be revoked and Counsel will be removed from this case;
2. Plaintiff’s Opening Brief shall be stricken;
3. Counsel will be ordered to promptly serve a copy of this Order on Plaintiff, who will in turn be afforded time to engage new counsel or proceed as a self-represented litigant;
4. Counsel will be ordered to write a letter to the three Judges to whom she attributed fictitious cases, [...], notifying them of her use of fake cases with their respective names attached;
5. Counsel will be ordered to transmit a copy of this Order to every Judge who presides over any case in which Counsel is attorney of record; and
6. The Clerk of Court’s Office will be directed to serve a copy of this Order on the Washington State Bar Association, of which Counsel is a member. If Counsel is a member of any other state’s bar, she shall serve a copy of this Order on that state’s bar office."

The court later reversed all sanctions, but reinstated the first and second on other grounds.

Clearpoint, a non-party document preparer, used undisclosed AI to draft filings for the pro se plaintiff that contained numerous nonexistent cases, statutes, and misquoted/misconstrued authorities. Nationstar highlighted over sixty instances; the Court found hallmarks of AI-produced work and referred the matter to the Arizona State Bar and Attorney General for potential investigation.

The defendant-appellee alleged that Hanna's brief contained nonexistent case citations generated by a GenAI tool. The court noted alleged fabricated citations and some incorrect citations but declined to impose sanctions against the pro se appellant, affirming the dismissal and denying attorney fees.

The court found the plaintiff's objections and central claims rooted in sovereign-citizen ideology and noted a fabricated quotation attributed to Penhallow v. Doane's Administrators, 3 U.S. 54 (1795). The R&R was adopted and the action dismissed as frivolous.

Appellant Father's counsel submitted an opening brief containing misleading/inaccurate legal citations, mischaracterized case law, fabricated quotations attributed to Owen v. Blackhawk, and false quotations purportedly from the amended decree and hearing transcripts. The appellate court identified these errors, concluded they supported a potential ethics referral, and forwarded the decision to the State Bar for review.

Report on Recommendations can be found here.

The plaintiff's sworn declaration contained multiple fabricated quotations and manufactured deposition citations. Defendants identified the fabrications in a motion to strike; the court found the declaration filed in bad faith, struck it, and imposed sanctions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(h). The plaintiff admitted using generative AI to draft portions and failing to review the declaration; counsel failed to verify the citations despite attending and taking the depositions.

The applicant's representative (Mr M Archer) cited various cases in closing submissions; the Deputy President formed the view he may have used artificial intelligence, asked him, and he admitted doing so. He was asked to supply a list of cited cases with links; the Commission stated it would disregard any cases for which citations/links could not be produced.