There’s an epidemic of court filings with hallucinated cases. Are judges at a tipping point?

Issue 40 

This past spring, French attorney Damien Charlotin made news headlines with his database of legal decisions where generative AI has produced hallucinated content. At the time this issue of the newsletter was prepared for publication, this international database of attorney and pro se filings with hallucinations, which is intended to be comprehensive, contained 234 cases. In April 2025, Magistrate Judge Lee G. Dunst of the United States District Court of the Eastern District of New York wrote in an Order Imposing Sanctions for the citation of fake cases, 

Unfortunately, this case is nothing new.  In recent years, courts across the country have continued to receive submissions littered with AI-generated “case” citations.  As one court observed, “thus far [generative AI’s] batting average in legal briefs leaves something to be desired.”  Pegnatori v. Pure Sports Techs. LLC, No. 23-CV-01424, 2023 WL 6626159, at *5 n.5 (D.S.C. Oct. 11, 2023).  This epidemic of citing fake cases has continued unabated, and, by way of example, the undersigned has identified at least four reported cases in the recent weeks confronting this very same issue. * * * [i] 

How Courts are Currently Sanctioning Lawyers for Hallucinations in Filings

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(c)(4) sets parameters on sanctions as follows: 

Nature of a Sanction. A sanction imposed under this rule must be limited to what suffices to deter repetition of the conduct or comparable conduct by others similarly situated. The sanction may include nonmonetary directives; an order to pay a penalty into court; or, if imposed on motion and warranted for effective deterrence, an order directing payment to the movant of part or all of the reasonable attorney's fees and other expenses directly resulting from the violation.[ii]  

However, the U.S. Federal Courts have varying interpretations of the purposes of sanctions. For example, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has articulated its sanctions standard as: 

In determining the appropriate sanction, courts focus not on compensation for the aggrieved party, but on “the deterrence of baseless filings and the curbing of abuses.”  (RC) 2 Pharma Connect, LLC v. Mission Pharmacal Co., No. 21-CV-11096, 2023 WL 112552, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 2023) (citation omitted).[iii] 

In contrast, United States District Court for the District of Wyoming has stated, 

‘Rule 11 sanctions are meant to serve several purposes, including (1) deterring future litigation abuse, (2) punishing present litigation abuse, (3) compensating victims of litigation abuse, and (4) streamlining court dockets and facilitating case management.’ White v. Gen. Motors Corp., 908 F.2d 675, 683 (10th Cir. 1990).[iv]  

As such, a range of possible attorney sanctions should be anticipated as courts across the country contend with hallucinations in court filings. As discussed below, courts have noted that a typical range of monetary sanctions has emerged.  

Monetary Sanctions

In his April 2025 Order Imposing Sanctions, Magistrate Judge Lee G. Dunst further noted in relation to the normal range of monetary sanctions:  

Across the country, courts have issued a panoply of sanctions against attorneys who submitted fake cases.  In nearly all cases, courts have imposed monetary sanctions ranging from $1,500 to $15,000.  See, e.g., Wadsworth v. Walmart Inc., No. 23-CV-118, 2025 WL 608073, at *8 (D. Wyo. Feb. 24, 2025) ($3,000 fine for the drafter of the brief with fake cases and $1,000 for other attorneys who signed, but did not draft brief); United States v. Hayes, No. 24-CR-0280, 2025 WL 235531, at *15 (E.D. Cal. Jan. 17, 2025) ($1,500 fine); Gauthier v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., No. 23-CV-281, 2024 WL 4882651, at *3 (E.D. Tex. Nov. 25, 2024) ($2,000 fine); Mid Central Operating Engineers Health & Welfare Fund v. Hoosiervac LLC, No. 24-CV00326, 2025 WL 574234, at *2-3 (S.D. Ind. Feb. 21, 2025) (recommending $15,000 fine); Mata, 678 F. Supp. 3d at 449 ($5,000 fine for citing fake cases and then submitting AI-generated fake excerpts from the fake cases).[v] 

After Magistrate Judge Lee G. Dunst’s sanctions order was issued, the final sanctions order was issued in Mid Central Operating Engineers Health & Welfare Fund et al. v. Hoosiervac LLC, reducing the $15,000 sanctions recommendation referenced above to $6,000.[vi] Although the recommendation was significantly reduced, the Hon. James Patrick Hanlon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana intended to impose a monetary sanction above the typical upper range the Court identified as $5,000, stating,  

The Court concludes that a sanction of $6,000 "suffices to deter repetition of the conduct or comparable conduct by others similarly situated."  Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(4).  This substantial sanction is appropriate because, as Magistrate Judge Dinsmore explained, Mr. Ramirez filed briefs containing nonexistent AI-generated legal citations on three separate occasions and the penalties imposed on other attorneys for similar misconduct "have evidently failed to act as a deterrent."  Dkt. 99 at 4–5 (collecting cases imposing sanctions up to $5,000).[vii] 

A significantly higher monetary sanction was issued in May 2025 in Lacey et al. v. State Farm General Insurance Co., when a court-appointed Special Master imposed financial payments in the amount of $31,100 from the law firms found responsible after an AI-related “collective debacle”.[viii]  

In this matter, counsel for plaintiff, consisting of a team of attorneys from Ellis George and K&L Gates, submitted a supplemental brief with nine out of 27 incorrect citations, including two non-existent authorities and several inaccurate quotations.[ix] An attorney from Ellis George used AI to generate an outline for the brief, and sent the outline to his co-counsel at K&L Gates, who did not know that the Ellis George attorney had utilized AI to prepare the outline, and did not ask him whether he had used AI.[x]  

The Special Master opined,  

The initial, undisclosed use of AI products to generate the first draft of the brief was flat-out wrong.  Even with recent advances, no reasonably competent attorney should out-source research and writing to this technology – particularly without any attempt to verify the accuracy of that material.  And sending that material to other lawyers without disclosing its sketchy AI origins realistically put those professionals in harm’s way.[xi] 

Further, the Special Master explained, 

Yet, the conduct of the lawyers at K&L Gates is also deeply troubling.  They failed to check the validity of the research sent to them.  As a result, the fake information found its way into the Original Brief that I read.  That’s bad.  But, when I contacted them and let them know about my concerns regarding a portion of their research, the lawyers’ solution was to excise the phony material and submit the Revised Brief – still containing a half-dozen AI errors.  Further, even though the lawyers were on notice of a significant problem with the legal research (as flagged by the brief’s recipient: the Special Master), there was no disclosure to me about the use of AI.  Instead, the e-mail transmitting the new brief merely suggested an inadvertent production error, not improper reliance on technology.  Translation: they had the information and the chance to fix this problem, but didn’t take it.[xii] 

The Special Master concluded, 

(a) the initial undisclosed use of AI, (b) the failure to cite-check the Original Brief, and (perhaps most egregiously), (c) the re-submission of the defective Revised Brief without adequate disclosure of the use of AI, taken together, demonstrate reckless conduct with the improper purpose of trying to influence my analysis of the disputed privilege issues.  The Ellis George and K&L Gates firms had adequate opportunities – before and after their error had been brought to their attention – to stop this from happening.  Their failure to do so justifies measured sanctions under these circumstances.[xiii] 

In addition to non-monetary sanctions, the Special Master ordered Ellis George and K&L Gates to reimburse the defense $26,100 in special master fees incurred to deal with the issue, as well as $5,000 for a portion of the defense’s costs for briefing the issue and attending the hearing.[xiv]  

Given the proliferation of court filings containing hallucinations, how long will it be before judges collectively decide that the current range of sanctions is not severe enough to deter repetition of the conduct or comparable conduct by others similarly situated? Are the outlying monetary sanctions discussed above an early signal of greater sanctions to come? And do recently imposed non-monetary sanctions offer their own suggestions that judges are losing patience with this ongoing problem of hallucinations in attorney filings?  

Non-Monetary Sanctions 

In addition to being required to attend CLEs in relation to AI and attorney ethics, non-monetary sanctions imposed in recent sanctions orders include:

• Referrals for bar discipline;[xv]
• Stricken filings containing hallucinated authorities;[xvi] 
• Revocation of pro hac vice admission;[xvii]   
• Requirement to provide a copy of the sanctions order to the sanctioned attorneys’ clients, opposing counsel, and presiding judge in every pending case in which they are counsel of record, and every attorney in their law firm;[xviii]
• An attorney's appearance in a case stricken with prejudice/disqualification from further participation in the case;[xix] and 
• A requirement to inform the client of the sanctions and that if she chose to refile her case, she would be required to find new counsel.[xx] 

Are Judges at a Tipping Point? 

Taken together, the recent outlying higher monetary sanctions and expanding menu of non-monetary sanctions signal waning judicial patience with court filings containing hallucinations. Just days ago, the Hon. Anna M. Manasco wrote in a sanctions order dated July 23, 2025:

Fabricating legal authority is serious misconduct that demands a serious sanction. In the court’s view, it demands substantially greater accountability than the reprimands and modest fines that have become common as courts confront this form of AI misuse. As a practical matter, time is telling us – quickly and loudly – that those sanctions are insufficient deterrents. In principle, they do not account for the danger that fake citations pose for the fair administration of justice and the integrity of the judicial system. And in any event, they have little effect when the lawyer’s client (here, an Alabama government agency) learns of the attorney’s misconduct and continues to retain him.   

An appropriate and reasonable sanction must (1) have sufficient deterrent force to make this misuse of AI unprofitable for lawyers and litigants, (2) correspond to the extreme dereliction of professional responsibility that sham citations reflect (whether generated by artificial or human intelligence), and (3) effectively communicate that made-up authorities have no place in a court of law. [xxi] 

Going forward, an attorney who files a document with the court containing hallucinations who has already been warned or sanctioned for the same issue should certainly anticipate more significant sanctions the second time. Similarly, when a court that has already issued an order on sanctions due to hallucinated citations inevitably has to deal with the same issue again in a separate case or cases, judges will likely respond with greater sanctions. And if the epidemic of filings with hallucinated cases continues at the current pace, sanctions are bound to rise.

Additionally, circumstances involving higher stakes seem primed to increase the severity of sanctions. For example, the Special Master in Lacey et al. v. State Farm General Insurance Co. concluded his order by stating,  

A final note.  Directly put, Plaintiff’s use of AI affirmatively misled me.  I read their brief, was persuaded (or at least intrigued) by the authorities that they cited, and looked up the decisions to learn more about them – only to find that they didn’t exist.  That’s scary.  It almost led to the scarier outcome (from my perspective) of including those bogus materials in a judicial order.  Strong deterrence is needed to make sure that attorneys don’t succumb to this easy shortcut.[xxii] 

And in fact, last month, the Court of Appeals of Georgia vacated a May 2024 trial court order that relied upon non-existent case law.[xxiii] The Court of Appeals did not make a factual finding “as to who (or what) inserted the fictitious cases into the superior court’s order[,]” but found that the order was purportedly prepared by the Husband’s attorney, Diana Lynch, and stated,  

We are deeply troubled, however, that Lynch submitted to this Court an Appellee’s Brief, completely ignoring the second of two arguments that Wife raised in her Appellant’s Brief and Application for Discretionary Review (wherein Wife pointed out the two fictitious cases in the trial court’s order), and provided 11 bogus case citations out of 15 total, one of which was in support of a frivolous request for attorney fees.  

Therefore, we impose a $2,500 frivolous motion penalty on Lynch, which is the most the law allows, pursuant to Court of Appeals Rule 7 (e) (2).[xxiv] 

I will be watching for updates on how the trial court handles the matter on remand. 

Thanks for being here. 

Jennifer Ballard 

Good Journey Consulting

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 [i] Order Imposing Sanctions at 2, Benjamin v. Costco Wholesale Corporation, No. 2:24-cv-07399 (E.D.N.Y. removed to Fed. Ct. Oct. 23, 2024). Note: two of the four reported cases identified by Magistrate Judge Lee G. Dunst were attorney-filed hallucinated citations, while the other two were pro se cases.  Id. 

[ii] Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(4). 

[iii] Id. at 11. 

[iv] Order on Sanctions and Other Disciplinary Action at 10, Wadsworth et al. v. Walmart Inc. et al., No. 2:23-cv-00118 (D. Wyo. 2025).  

[v] Order Imposing Sanctions at 10-11, Benjamin v. Costco Wholesale Corporation. 

[vi] Order on Report and Recommendation at 3, Mid Central Operating Engineers Health and Welfare Fund et al. v. Hoosiervac LLC, No. 2:24-cv-00326 (S.D. Ind. filed Jun. 24, 2024). 

[vii] Id. 

[viii] Order of Special Master Imposing Non-Monetary Sanctions and Awarding Costs at 1-2, 10, Jacqueline “Jackie” Lacey et al. v. State Farm General Insurance Co., No. 2:24-cv-05205 (C.D. Cal. removed to Fed. Ct. Jun. 20, 2024). 

[ix] Id. at 2-3. 

[x] Id. at 3. 

[xi] Id. at 7. 

[xii] Id. 

[xiii] Id. at 7-8. 

[xiv] Id. at 8-9. 

[xv] E.g., Order at 1, Juan Eric Allen v. Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC et al., No. 2:25-cv-01222 (E.D. Cal. removed to Fed. Ct. Apr. 28, 2025); Memorandum Opinion and Order on Sanctions and Other Disciplinary Action at 11, Dehghani v. Castro, No. 2:24-cv-00052 (D.N.M. filed Jan. 16, 2025); Memorandum Re: Motion to Dismiss and Sanctions at 13-14, Bevins v. Colgate-Palmolive Co. et al., No. 25-cv-00576 (E.D. Pa. removed to Fed. Ct. Feb. 3, 2025). 

[xvi] Order of Special Master Imposing Non-Monetary Sanctions and Awarding Costs at 10, Lacey et al. v. State Farm General Insurance Co. 

[xvii] Order on Sanctions and Other Disciplinary Action at 17, Wadsworth et al. v. Walmart Inc. et al. 

[xviii] Sanctions Order at 50, Johnson v. Dunn et al., No. 2:21-cv-01701 (filed Dec. 27, 2021).

[xix] Memorandum Re: Motion to Dismiss and Sanctions at 14, Bevins v. Colgate-Palmolive Co. et al.; Sanctions Order at 50, Johnson v. Dunn et al., No. 2:21-cv-01701 (filed Dec. 27, 2021); 

[xx] Id. 

[xxi] Sanctions Order at 1-2, Johnson v. Dunn et al., No. 2:21-cv-01701 (filed Dec. 27, 2021).

[xxii] Order of Special Master Imposing Non-Monetary Sanctions and Awarding Costs at 10, Lacey et al. v. State Farm General Insurance Co. 

[xxiii] Opinion at 1, Shahid v. Esaam, No. A25A0196 (Ct. Apps. Ga. opinion dated Jun. 30, 2025); Rosie Manins, Judges slam Atlanta divorce lawyer’s apparent use of AI, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Jul. 3, 2025), https://www.ajc.com/news/2025/07/judges-slam-atlanta-divorce-lawyers-apparent-use-of-ai/. 

[xxiv] Id. at 4, 8-10 (internal footnotes omitted).