AI Citation Sanctions Roundup, Week 4: $10,000 and a Revoked Pro Hac Vice in Massachusetts, a State Bar Referral in California

Short answer: three United States courts acted on fabricated or misquoted citations between September 23 and October 2, 2026. One produced money and a revoked pro hac vice admission, capped at $10,000. One was the California Supreme Court, which referred the matter to the State Bar.

Each case below was verified by reading the order or opinion itself. As in week three, what we could not open is named at the bottom.

What did the District of Massachusetts do in Aguilar v. The Crawford Group?

On Friday, September 25, 2026, Judge Angel Kelley entered a sanctions order in Aguilar v. The Crawford Group, Inc., Civil Action No. 25-CV-12395-AK (D. Mass.). The order catalogues citations that do not say what the brief said they say. Rodriguez v. Doral Mortgage Corp., 57 F.3d 1168 (1st Cir. 1995), was cited six times for a Rule 12(g)(2) proposition even though the case never mentions Rule 12. Glassman v. Computervision Corp., 90 F.3d 617 (1st Cir. 1996), was cited for a quotation it does not contain. One citation carried what the order calls “a fictitious Westlaw citation,” and another case could not be located on Westlaw, Lexis or Bloomberg. The court framed it institutionally: “our collective character is tested with the influx of Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) in the legal field.”

Two features of the remedy matter. The money runs against the firm: “The Lindemann Law Firm is ordered to pay reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred by the Enterprise Defendants… These fees and costs shall not exceed $10,000.” That tracks Rule 11(c)(1), which makes a firm jointly responsible absent exceptional circumstances. More unusual, the court revoked the appearance: “The Court revokes Attorney Lindemann’s pro hac vice status. Attorney Dana shall remain Plaintiff’s counsel.” A status conference is set for November 9, 2026.

Read the posture closely. The order states that the defendants’ sanctions motion “is GRANTED and the Court imposes sanctions on its own initiative pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11.” Those two routes carry different limits. Rule 11(c)(4) authorizes fees to the movant “if imposed on motion and warranted for effective deterrence,” while Rule 11(c)(5)(B) bars a monetary sanction imposed “on its own” unless the show cause order issued before voluntary dismissal or settlement. When you oppose a sanctions request, which clause the court is acting under decides whether your client can be made to pay the other side’s fees at all.

California Supreme Court AI referral: Cervantes v. Bianco

Circulate this one internally. In Cervantes v. Bianco, No. S295866 (Cal. Sept. 24, 2026), Chief Justice Guerrero wrote for the court in an Elections Code ballot custody case. The sheriff’s preliminary briefing “challenged petitioners’ standing based on misquoted passages from, and an incorrect recitation of our holding in, Common Cause v. Board of Supervisors (1989) 49 Cal.3d 432.” The responsible firm apologized and withdrew the standing argument. That was not the end of it. The court wrote: “We disapprove of the improper use of artificial intelligence tools, which apparently contributed to the significant error that occurred here and remind counsel of attorneys’ professional duties of competence and candor to the court. (See Rules Prof. Conduct, rules 1.1, 3.3.)” It added: “We also refer the matter to the State Bar of California to determine whether discipline is warranted. (See canon 3D(2) of the California Code of Judicial Ethics.)”

Keep the categories separate. No monetary sanction was imposed and Code of Civil Procedure section 128.7 was not invoked. This is a discipline referral under the Code of Judicial Ethics, measured against the Rules of Professional Conduct, not a sanctions award and not a malpractice holding. The withdrawal that would have cured a section 128.7 exposure inside the 21 day window did not stop it. Contrast Noland v. Land of the Free, where a Court of Appeal imposed money.

Sixth Circuit warning without sanctions: Koeberer v. Weir

In Koeberer v. Weir, No. 25-3541 (6th Cir. Sept. 24, 2026), a panel of Judges Moore, Nalbandian and Mathis affirmed dismissal and then addressed problematic citations in appellant’s counsel’s brief. The panel stated the duty in the words it used earlier this year: “Attorneys have an ethical obligation to verify the citations and propositions they submit to courts; that obligation reflects duties of competence and candor,” quoting United States v. Farris, 171 F.4th 920, 923 (6th Cir. 2026). It declined to impose sanctions and warned instead: “Ms. Wasserman is warned that a failure to adhere to her professional responsibilities going forward in her filings in this case, or other cases in this court, could warrant sanctions.”

The detail that matters is that the opinion is recommended for publication under Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b). A published warning naming counsel is a permanent record and authority the court can point back to. The opinion does not itemize which authorities were defective, so we name none.

The rule text behind this week’s orders

Provision	Operative language	Source read
Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(1)	“Absent exceptional circumstances, a law firm must be held jointly responsible for a violation committed by its partner, associate, or employee.”	law.cornell.edu
Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(4)	“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.”	law.cornell.edu
Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(5)(B)	The court must not impose a monetary sanction “on its own, unless it issued the show-cause order under Rule 11(c)(3) before voluntary dismissal or settlement of the claims made by or against the party that is, or whose attorneys are, to be sanctioned.”	law.cornell.edu
Fed. R. App. P. 46(c)	“A court of appeals may discipline an attorney who practices before it for conduct unbecoming a member of the bar or for failure to comply with any court rule. First, however, the court must afford the attorney reasonable notice, an opportunity to show cause to the contrary, and, if requested, a hearing.”	law.cornell.edu
Cal. Rules Prof. Conduct, rule 1.1(a)	“A lawyer shall not intentionally, recklessly, with gross negligence, or repeatedly fail to perform legal services with competence.”	calbar.ca.gov and courts.ca.gov, agreeing
Cal. Rules Prof. Conduct, rule 1.1, comment [1]	The duties under the rule “include the duty to keep abreast of the changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.”	calbar.ca.gov
Cal. Rules Prof. Conduct, rule 3.3(a)(1)	“A lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal.” Quoted only this far: our two sources render the rest of the paragraph differently, so we state nothing about it.	courts.ca.gov and calbar.ca.gov
Cal. Code Jud. Ethics, canon 3D(2)	“Whenever a judge has personal knowledge, or concludes in a judicial decision, that a lawyer has committed misconduct or has violated any provision of the Rules of Professional Conduct, the judge shall take appropriate corrective action, which may include reporting the violation to the appropriate authority.”	courts.ca.gov
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

Drafting-ready text: certificate of citation verification

Week three gave you the declaration you file after a show cause order lands. This is the paper that keeps the order from issuing, and Cervantes is the reason: a later withdrawal does not undo the filing.

CERTIFICATE OF CITATION VERIFICATION

I certify as counsel of record for [PARTY] that:

1. Every authority cited in [DOCUMENT] was retrieved by a person
   from the reporter, the official slip opinion, or the court's own
   docket, and not from a summary, a headnote, a brief quoting it,
   or the output of any automated research tool.

2. The reporter citation and the pin cite were confirmed separately
   for each authority, and every passage in quotation marks was
   compared word for word against the source at the page cited.

3. Each authority cited for a proposition was confirmed to state
   that proposition, and subsequent history was checked as of
   [DATE].

4. [Select one] No generative artificial intelligence tool was used
   in preparing [DOCUMENT]. / A generative artificial intelligence
   tool was used in preparing [DOCUMENT] for the following tasks:
   [TASKS]. No citation or quotation produced by that tool was
   included without the verification described above.

5. The verification log recording each authority, the source
   retrieved, the date of retrieval, and the person who verified it
   is maintained by this office and is available to the Court on
   request.

Dated: [DATE]                    _______________________
                                 [COUNSEL], Bar No. [NUMBER]

Paragraph 5 is the one people skip and the one that matters. If an order arrives, the log is the exhibit.

Worked example: counting the Aguilar calendar

Rule 6(a)(1) excludes the triggering day, counts every intervening weekend and legal holiday, and rolls forward only if the last day is itself a weekend or holiday. Rule 6(a)(5) continues the count backward when the period runs before an event. Applied to the real dates:

• Order to status conference. Order entered Friday, September 25, 2026; conference Monday, November 9, 2026. September 25 plus 5 days is September 30, plus 31 is October 31, plus 9 is November 9. Forty five days, with the fee capped but not yet fixed.
• The safe harbor nobody used. Had the defendants proceeded only by motion under Rule 11(c)(2) and set it for November 9, 2026, counting 21 days backward lands on Monday, October 19, 2026. Service by October 19 would have given counsel until November 9 to withdraw or correct. Neither endpoint is a weekend, so nothing rolls.
• The California counterfactual. Had a superior court served an order to show cause under section 128.7(c)(2) on September 25, 2026, counsel would have had 21 days to withdraw or correct, and that cure runs even on the court’s own motion. Mechanics in CCP 128.7’s 21-Day Safe Harbor.

Cross-jurisdiction contrast, limited to what we verified today

Federal district court. Rule 11 supplies both the money and the limits. Fees to the opposing party require a motion under Rule 11(c)(4), the firm is jointly responsible under Rule 11(c)(1), and Rule 11(c)(5)(B) bars a monetary sanction on the court’s own initiative unless the show cause order issued before dismissal or settlement. Mechanics in Rule 11 and the AI-Generated Brief.

Federal appellate court. Rule 11 does not govern on appeal. Fed. R. App. P. 46(c) is the discipline provision and requires notice and an opportunity to show cause first, which is why Koeberer produced a warning rather than a sanction.

California state court. Two tracks, and Cervantes used the second. Section 128.7 is the sanctions track with its 21 day cure. Canon 3D(2) is the discipline track, measured against rules 1.1 and 3.3. A withdrawal cures the first and not the second.

New York state court. Part 130 is a costs and fees regime, not a certification regime. Under 22 NYCRR 130-1.1(c)(3), conduct is frivolous where “it asserts material factual statements that are false,” with no cure window. We verified no New York decision this week and describe none.

Pre-filing checklist

• Retrieve every cited authority yourself from a reporter, slip opinion or docket. Rodriguez v. Doral Mortgage was a real case cited six times for a rule it never mentions.
• Confirm the reporter cite and the database number separately. One citation in Aguilar failed on a fictitious Westlaw number attached to a real party name.
• Search Westlaw, Lexis and a third source before concluding a case exists, which is the method the Aguilar court described.
• Compare every quoted sentence to the source at the page cited, and mark any alteration.
• If the brief came from co-counsel, contract counsel or a vendor, verify it as if you wrote it. Rule 11(c)(1) reaches the firm and the signature is yours.
• Fix it before filing. Withdrawing later limits California sanctions exposure and does not avoid a discipline referral.
• Keep the log: authority, source, date, verifier. See the longer sanctions record for how often the absence of one becomes the finding.

Before the next brief leaves your office

The certificate above is only worth filing if someone did the work behind it. LegalBriefsUSA runs that citation verification pass on briefs drafted by your firm, by contract counsel, or by us, and returns the completed log in the form paragraph 5 describes. If a brief goes out this week whose citations nobody has independently pulled, that is the one to send over. We will also run the pass on an opposition you received, the exposure Noland put on receiving counsel.

Authorities cited

Aguilar v. The Crawford Group, Inc., No. 25-CV-12395-AK (D. Mass. Sept. 25, 2026) (Kelley, J.), read in full in two independent copies, the PDF in the AI Hallucination Cases database and the copy at cases.justia.com, which agree on court, docket, judge, date, the $10,000 cap and the revocation. Cervantes v. Bianco, No. S295866 (Cal. Sept. 24, 2026) (Guerrero, C.J.), read in full on law.justia.com and in the opinion PDF, with the referral independently reported by Horvitz & Levy. Koeberer v. Weir, No. 25-3541 (6th Cir. Sept. 24, 2026), read in the court’s own published opinion at opn.ca6.uscourts.gov. Rule text read today at law.cornell.edu: Fed. R. Civ. P. 11, Rule 6, Fed. R. App. P. 46, 22 NYCRR 130-1.1. Canon 3D(2), courts.ca.gov. Rule 1.1 against calbar.ca.gov and courts.ca.gov; section 128.7 against california.public.law and codes.findlaw.com.

Left out for lack of verification. Rule 3.3(a)(1) is quoted only through “to a tribunal,” because our two sources render the remainder differently. United States v. Farris, 171 F.4th 920 (6th Cir. 2026) appears only as the Koeberer panel quoted it; we did not open it. Zhejiang Dingli Machinery Co. v. United States (Ct. Int’l Trade Sept. 22, 2026) and Ryan v. Perez (Fla. 3d DCA Sept. 23, 2026) appear in the database for this window, but we could not open either decision, so neither is described. Nothing here states a Part 130 maximum, a District of Massachusetts local rule on pro hac vice, or any malpractice exposure, none of which we verified today. The Cervantes referral is a pending inquiry, not a disciplinary finding.

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.