AI Citation Sanctions Roundup, Week 3: What Five Courts Did Between September 17 and September 25, 2026
Short answer: five United States courts flagged fabricated or false citations between September 17 and September 25, 2026. Only one produced money, $23,222 in appellate-affirmed fees in Englert v. Gateway Crossing. The other four issued show cause orders with 6-day to 14-day fuses.
As in week two, every case below was verified by reading the order itself. Cases we could not open are named at the bottom.
What did the District of D.C. do in Garner v. Transit Employees Federal Credit Union?
On September 22, 2026, Judge Loren L. AliKhan entered an order to show cause in Garner v. Transit Employees Federal Credit Union, Civil Action No. 25-4024 (LLA) (D.D.C.). Plaintiff’s counsel had quoted three D.C. Circuit decisions for language the court could not find in them. The order says counsel “quotes Waterhouse v. District of Columbia, 298 F.3d 989, 993 (D.C. Cir. 2002), for the proposition that ‘statements revealing discriminatory motivation are highly probative of discriminatory intent,’ even though the Circuit did not say that,” and makes the same finding as to Aka v. Washington Hospital Center, 156 F.3d 1284 (D.C. Cir. 1998), and Brown v. Brody, 199 F.3d 446 (D.C. Cir. 1999).
The court invoked Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b)(2) and D.C. Rule of Professional Conduct 3.3(a)(1). Counsel has fourteen days to file a complete list of cited authorities with verification, to explain what caused the errors including whether generative AI was used, and to address appropriate sanctions. No monetary sanction was imposed at this stage.
What did the Eastern District of Pennsylvania do in Whitfield v. Prime Agency?
On September 18, 2026, Judge Antonio M. Pozos issued a show cause order in Whitfield v. Prime Agency, LLC, Civil Action No. 26-0327 (E.D. Pa.). This one is worse than a bad quotation. The court identified citations that correspond to no case it could locate, including Wilson v. Quest Diagnostics, 2022 WL 17152188, and Samuel v. U.S. Bank, 2022 WL 3904510. A third, cited as Smith v. Vision Solar LLC, 2023 WL 5607458, carries a Westlaw number belonging to an Ohio case. The court also found counsel cited Gadelhak v. AT&T Services, Inc., 950 F.3d 458 (7th Cir. 2020), for the opposite of what it holds, and that both quotations attributed to Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, were absent or substantially altered.
The order directs counsel to show cause why his statements have not violated Rule 11(b) and Pennsylvania Rule of Professional Conduct 3.3, with a response due October 2, 2026. No dollar figure yet.
What did the Southern District of New York do in Hill v. Foundation Media?
New York practitioners should read this one closely, because the problem was on the defense side. In Lawand Hill v. Foundation Media LLC, No. 25-cv-5947 (AS) (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 22, 2026), Judge Arun Subramanian directed Foundation’s counsel to file a declaration under 28 U.S.C. section 1746 addressing whether “AI was used in the preparation of Foundation’s response” and whether “the quotations attributed to Piazza and the citation to Zhao were a result of Foundation’s unchecked use of AI.” The declaration was due September 28, 2026. The plaintiff is unrepresented; counsel for the institutional party drew the order.
Note what the court did not do. It did not invoke Rule 11, did not open a sanctions proceeding, and imposed nothing. It asked for a sworn account first.
The only dollar figure this week: Englert v. Gateway Crossing
In John L. Englert v. Gateway Crossing Property Owners Association, Inc., No. 26A-MI-133 (Ind. Ct. App. Sept. 18, 2026) (mem. dec.), Judge DeBoer, joined by Judges Mathias and Kenworthy, affirmed a trial court award of $23,222.00 in attorney fees to the association. The appellant, proceeding without counsel, had cited a run of decisions the court could not find, including Sunset Sailboat Sales, Inc. v. Trautman and Bennett v. Hidden Valley Lake Property Owners Association. The court relied on Indiana Appellate Rule 46(A)(8)(a), which requires cogent reasoning supported by citations to authorities, and records that the trial court “was commenting to Englert about the dangers of relying on artificial intelligence when doing legal research.”
Keep the categories straight. This is a fee award against a losing party, affirmed on appeal. It is not a Rule 11 sanction, not a disciplinary referral, and not a malpractice holding. Those exposures run on different standards, and this week produced no verified example of the last two.
One more: a government brief in Dean v. Commissioner of Social Security
In Kimberly Dean v. Commissioner of Social Security Administration, No. CV-25-08149-PCT-DWL (D. Ariz. Sept. 22, 2026), the court flagged a quotation the Commissioner attributed to Turner v. Commissioner of Social Security, 613 F.3d 1217 (9th Cir. 2010). Footnote 2 states: “This language does not appear in Turner, which raises a concern that the Commissioner has provided an AI-hallucinated quotation.” No show cause order, no sanction. The point is that the problem is not confined to solo practitioners and pro se filers.
The rule text behind this week’s orders
| Provision | Operative language | Source read |
|---|---|---|
| Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(2) | Legal contentions must be “warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law.” | law.cornell.edu |
| Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(3) | “On its own, the court may order an attorney, law firm, or party to show cause why conduct specifically described in the order has not violated Rule 11(b).” | law.cornell.edu |
| Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(2) | A sanctions motion “must not be filed or be presented to the court if the challenged paper, claim, defense, contention, or denial is withdrawn or appropriately corrected within 21 days after service or within another time the court sets.” | law.cornell.edu |
| Cal. Code Civ. Proc. section 128.7(c)(2) | “On its own motion, the court may enter an order describing the specific conduct that appears to violate subdivision (b) and directing an attorney, law firm, or party to show cause why it has not violated subdivision (b), unless, within 21 days of service of the order to show cause, the challenged paper, claim, defense, contention, allegation, or denial is withdrawn or appropriately corrected.” | california.public.law and codes.findlaw.com, agreeing |
| 22 NYCRR 130-1.1(c)(3) | Conduct is frivolous where “it asserts material factual statements that are false.” | law.cornell.edu |
| 22 NYCRR 130-1.1a(b) | By signing, counsel certifies that “the presentation of the paper or the contentions therein are not frivolous as defined in section 130-1.1(c).” | law.cornell.edu |
| Fed. R. Bankr. P. 9011(b)(2) | Contentions must be “warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument to extend, modify, or reverse existing law, or to establish new law.” | law.cornell.edu |
| 28 U.S.C. section 1746 | “I declare (or certify, verify, or state) under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on (date).” | law.cornell.edu |
Drafting-ready text: responding to a citation show cause order
Three of this week’s five orders demand a sworn account of how the citation got into the brief. Here is a skeleton built to the section 1746 form and to what those orders actually asked for.
DECLARATION OF [NAME] IN RESPONSE TO ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE
I, [NAME], declare as follows:
1. I am an attorney admitted to practice before this Court and counsel
of record for [PARTY]. I make this declaration from personal
knowledge in response to the Court's Order of [DATE] [ECF No. __].
2. Attached as Exhibit A is a complete list of every authority cited in
[DOCUMENT], identifying for each (a) the reporter or docket source I
personally retrieved, (b) the date I retrieved it, and (c) the page
on which each quoted passage appears.
3. The citation to [CASE], [CITE], at page __ of [DOCUMENT] is
[inaccurate / does not support the proposition / cannot be located].
I withdraw that citation and the sentence it supports.
4. The error occurred as follows: [state the sequence, including who
drafted the passage, what research tool or database was used, whether
any generative artificial intelligence tool was used and which one,
and who, if anyone, checked the citation before filing].
5. [If applicable] Generative artificial intelligence was used in the
preparation of [DOCUMENT] as follows: [tool, task, and date]. The
output was not independently verified against the reported decision
before filing. That failure was mine.
6. I have since [describe the corrective steps: full re-verification,
corrected filing, notice to opposing counsel, supervision changes].
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and
correct. Executed on [DATE] at [CITY, STATE].
_______________________
[NAME]
Do not hedge paragraph 3. A court reading a show cause response wants a withdrawal, not a defense of a citation that does not exist. Answer the AI question directly whether or not it was asked, because Garner and Hill both asked for it by name.
Worked example: counting this week’s response deadlines
Every fuse here is short, and two are shorter than the federal safe harbor most litigators carry in their heads.
- Whitfield (E.D. Pa.): order entered Friday, September 18, 2026. Response due October 2, 2026. Count forward: September 18 plus 12 days is September 30, plus 2 days is October 2. Fourteen calendar days, landing on a Friday.
- Garner (D.D.C.): order entered Tuesday, September 22, 2026, with fourteen days to respond. September 22 plus 8 days is September 30, plus 6 days is October 6, 2026, a Tuesday.
- Hill (S.D.N.Y.): order entered September 22, 2026, declaration due September 28, 2026. Six days. One weekend inside it.
- The California counterfactual: had a superior court served the same order to show cause on September 18, 2026 under Code of Civil Procedure section 128.7(c)(2), counsel would have had 21 days, to October 9, 2026, to withdraw or correct the offending paper and avoid the sanction entirely.
Cross-jurisdiction contrast, limited to what we verified this week
Federal court. Rule 11(c)(2)’s 21-day safe harbor is written for a party’s sanctions motion. When the court acts on its own under Rule 11(c)(3), the text contains no cure window. Rule 11(c)(5) separately bars a monetary sanction imposed on the court’s own initiative unless the show cause order issued before voluntary dismissal or settlement. That structure is why the federal orders this week give you fourteen days to explain rather than 21 days to fix. Mechanics in Rule 11 and the AI-Generated Brief.
California. Section 128.7(c)(2) is drafted differently. The 21-day cure survives even when the court proceeds on its own motion, as two independent sources of the code text confirm. That is a real divergence from federal practice on identical-looking language, and it is the single most valuable thing a California litigator can know about this area. See CCP 128.7’s 21-Day Safe Harbor.
New York state court. Part 130 has no equivalent cure window. The signature on the paper is the certification under 22 NYCRR 130-1.1a(b), and 130-1.1(c)(3) makes asserting “material factual statements that are false” frivolous conduct on its own. A fabricated quotation is a false factual statement about what a court wrote.
Bankruptcy court. Rule 9011(b)(2) carries the same certification as Civil Rule 11(b)(2) in nearly identical words. Nothing about the adversary proceeding or contested matter posture softens it.
Pre-filing checklist
- Pull every cited case from a reporter or docket source yourself. Not a summary, not a headnote, not a second brief quoting it.
- Confirm the reporter cite and the pin cite separately. Smith v. Vision Solar failed because the Westlaw number belonged to a different case.
- Match every quoted sentence to the opinion word for word. Three of this week’s five orders involve real cases quoted for words they do not contain.
- Confirm the case holds what you say it holds, not the opposite. Gadelhak was cited backward.
- Check subsequent history on every authority carrying a proposition.
- Log it: authority, source retrieved, date, who checked. That log is your paragraph 2 exhibit if an order to show cause arrives.
- If generative AI touched the draft, record which tool, which task, and who verified the output before filing.
Before the next brief goes out
Every order in this roundup would have been avoided by one person pulling every cite and reading the quoted sentence. LegalBriefsUSA runs that citation verification pass on briefs drafted by your firm, by contract counsel, or by us, and returns the log in the format a show cause response needs. If a brief goes out this week with citations nobody has independently pulled, that is the one to send.
Authorities cited
Garner v. Transit Employees Federal Credit Union, No. 25-4024 (LLA) (D.D.C. Sept. 22, 2026), read in full on govinfo.gov. Whitfield v. Prime Agency, LLC, No. 26-0327 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 18, 2026); Lawand Hill v. Foundation Media LLC, No. 25-cv-5947 (AS) (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 22, 2026); Kimberly Dean v. Commissioner of Social Security Administration, No. CV-25-08149-PCT-DWL (D. Ariz. Sept. 22, 2026); and John L. Englert v. Gateway Crossing Property Owners Association, Inc., No. 26A-MI-133 (Ind. Ct. App. Sept. 18, 2026) (mem. dec.), each read in full from the order PDF collected in the AI Hallucination Cases database, which also independently records the court, date, and disposition of each. Rule text: Fed. R. Civ. P. 11, Fed. R. Bankr. P. 9011, and 28 U.S.C. section 1746 at law.cornell.edu; 22 NYCRR 130-1.1 and 130-1.1a at law.cornell.edu; Code of Civil Procedure section 128.7 confirmed against two independent sources, california.public.law and codes.findlaw.com, which agree on the operative language.
Left out for lack of verification. In re John Daniel Deane (Bankr. D. Me. Sept. 18, 2026) appears in the database for this window, but the order PDF returned a server error and we could not read it, so it is not summarized here. Nine other United States entries dated September 17 through September 25, 2026 were not opened and are not described. We make no claim about disciplinary referrals or malpractice exposure arising from these orders, because none of the documents we read addresses either. For the longer record, see the sanctions record and Noland v. Land of the Free.
LegalBriefsUSA.com provides drafting and research support to licensed attorneys and law firms. This article is written for attorneys, is not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship.