Sanctions for AI citations: eight cases, 2025-2026
On March 13, 2026, the Sixth Circuit ordered two attorneys to pay $15,000 each in fines, plus costs and double costs, for two dozen nonexistent citations in appellate filings. A month earlier the Fifth Circuit fined an attorney for a reply brief with fabricated quotations. Since the start of 2025 there have been enough such rulings to speak of an established practice. Below are eight cases selected by one criterion: a published order with a specific measure. For legal AI developers what matters is not the punishment but exactly which errors the courts found and what check would have caught them.
Summary table
| Case | Court | Date | What was found | Measure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wadsworth v. Walmart | D. Wyo. | 02/24/2025 | Eight of nine citations do not exist; the draft was prepared by the firm’s internal AI platform | $3,000 for the drafter, revocation of pro hac vice admission, $1,000 each for the supervising partner and local counsel |
| Lacey v. State Farm | C.D. Cal. | 05/06/2025 | About nine defective citations out of 27, including fabricated quotations; the material passed through CoCounsel, Westlaw Precision and Gemini and two firms | $31,100 jointly from two firms, briefs withdrawn |
| In re Baby Boy | Ill. App. 4th Dist. | 07/21/2025 | Eight fabricated cases in an appeal on termination of parental rights; the attorney at first insisted that some of the cases existed | Return of $6,925.62 in fees, $1,000, referral to the ARDC |
| Johnson v. Dunn | N.D. Ala. | 07/23/2025 | Five fabricated citations in two discovery motions; the firm’s internal AI policy was not followed | Public reprimand, removal of three attorneys from the case, notice to bar authorities |
| Seither & Cherry v. Oakland Automation | E.D. Mich. | 07/28/2025 | Real cases with fabricated quotations, parentheticals and holdings | $1,485 from the attorney under Rule 11, without a finding of bad faith |
| Noland v. Land of the Free | Cal. Ct. App. | 09/12/2025 | Almost all quotations in the opening brief fabricated, some cases do not exist | $10,000, service of the decision on the client, referral to the State Bar; published as a warning |
| Fletcher v. Experian | 5th Cir. | 02/18/2026 | Fabricated quotations and misstatements of law in a reply brief; insufficient candor in the response to the show-cause order | $2,500 under FRAP 46(c) |
| Whiting v. City of Athens | 6th Cir. | 03/13/2026 | More than two dozen false citations and misstatements of the record in three consolidated appeals | $15,000 from each attorney, fees, double costs, disciplinary referral |
What courts treat as a violation
None of the eight rulings prohibits the use of AI. The courts proceed from the premise that the duty to verify exists regardless of the tool. The Fifth Circuit in Fletcher noted directly that the existing professional rules are sufficient and that a separate mandatory disclosure of AI use is not a condition of liability. The Sixth Circuit in Whiting put the same point from the other side: a filing must not contain unverified citations, whether generative AI or another source produced them. In Whiting the central conclusion is built independently of whether the court established the use of AI.
The California Court of Appeal in Noland gave a formula that can be used as an acceptance criterion: zero citations that the responsible attorney has not personally read and verified. Verification covers not only the existence of the case but also the accuracy of the quotation and its correspondence to the cited proposition.
What measures courts choose
Monetary sanctions in this series are small: from $1,485 to $31,100. The harsher consequences are non-monetary. In Johnson v. Dunn the court considered a fine an insufficient deterrent and chose public reprimand, removal from the case and notice to current clients, opponents and judges in other cases. In Wadsworth the drafter lost pro hac vice admission. In Noland and In re Baby Boy the courts refused to allow substitution of the brief after the errors were discovered: correction after filing does not undo the consequences.
An aggravating circumstance in Fletcher and In re Baby Boy was conduct after the error was discovered: insufficient candor in the response to the show-cause order or an attempt to insist that some of the citations existed. In Lacey and Seither & Cherry, by contrast, acknowledgment of the errors and corrective action limited the sanction.
Who is liable within the firm
Three rulings examine the allocation of roles. In Wadsworth the court separately assessed the drafter, the supervising partner and the local counsel who signed the document without checking it, and did not accept reliance on the firm’s internal tool as a guarantee of quality. In Lacey liability arose from handing material between two firms without a full cite-check. In Johnson the firm had a written AI policy requiring approval and independent verification but did not follow it; the court sanctioned the signing attorneys, not the firm or the client.
The class of errors a metadata check misses
The most important case in this series for model evaluation is Seither & Cherry. The citations there pointed to real cases, while the quotations, parentheticals and holdings were fabricated. A check that only confirms a case exists by its reference will not find such an error. It requires three steps: retrieving the full text of the decision, matching the quotation against the text, and verifying that the cited proposition actually follows from the decision.
In Whiting the court listed exactly what is subject to control: existence, quotation, holding, procedural posture and the connection to the proposition the citation is meant to support. This is a ready checklist for validating the outputs of a legal AI system before a document is filed.
In the Lexometrica Ground Truth leaderboard, the Citations OK metric measures the share of model answers with correct references to legislation. The series of sanctions shows that this metric alone is not enough: a separate test is needed for the accuracy of quotations from existing sources, not only for the existence of the source.
Sources
- Wadsworth v. Walmart Inc., D. Wyo., No. 2:23-cv-118-KHR, February 24, 2025: FindLaw
- Lacey v. State Farm, C.D. Cal., No. 2:24-cv-05205, May 6, 2025: ECF 119, CourtListener, Volokh Conspiracy analysis
- In re Baby Boy, 2025 IL App (4th) 241427, July 21, 2025: Illinois Courts
- Johnson v. Dunn, 792 F. Supp. 3d 1241, N.D. Ala., July 23, 2025: text, CourtListener
- Seither & Cherry v. Oakland Automation, E.D. Mich., No. 4:23-cv-11310, July 28, 2025: consolidated order
- Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P., 114 Cal. App. 5th 426, September 12, 2025: text
- Fletcher v. Experian, 5th Cir., No. 25-20086, February 18, 2026: sanctions opinion
- Whiting v. City of Athens, 6th Cir., Nos. 24-5918/5919 and 25-5424, March 13, 2026: GovInfo, Reuters