Cheryl Hileman v. West Penn Allegheny Health System Inc
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 7 May 2026 to 21 May 2026. What the court wrote about citations that did not exist, in its own words, from 2 documents on file.
Case record · 3rd Cir.
Court. Court of Appeals for the Third CircuitCOURT
Retrieved · the text below was read from the source documents on that day.
What the court wrote
The passages in which the court addresses the fabricated authority, verbatim, by document. A bracketed ellipsis marks where a passage was cut for length; nothing else is changed.
Docket entry 53, 21 May 2026 · source · PDF · 4 pages
Docket text. ECF FILER: Show Cause Response filed by Attorney Joshua Ward, Esq. for Appellant Cheryl Hileman. [25-1459] (JW) [Entered: 05/21/2026 04:20 PM]
As signing attorney, the undersigned recognizes the obligation to ensure the accuracy of authorities presented to the Court and regrets that the challenged citations and quotations were not independently verified before filing. This response is intended to answer the Court’s questions directly: whether the inaccurate citations and quotations were the result of artificial -intelligence hallucinations, and what steps were taken to check them before filing. Based on the undersigned’s investigation to date, the undersigned has not found evidence that the inaccurate quotations or case discussions were generated by artificial intelligence.
The undersigned did not appreciate the need for a corrective filing at that time, but recognizes now that the better course would have been to review the authorities immediately and, if appropriate, notify the Court. Although the undersigned cannot confirm after reasonable investigation that the inaccurate quotations and case discussions were AI -generated, fabricated quotations and inapplicable case descriptions are now commonly associated with generative- AI hallucinations. For that reason, and because the Court specifically asked whether artificial intelligence was involved, the undersigned also addresses the Firm’s policies and protocols regarding AI use and citation verification.
The undersigned did not know that any quotation or case description was inaccurate when the motion was filed. The undersigned did not instruct anyone to fabricate authority and did not intend to mislead the Court or defense counsel. The undersigned’s error was assuming that the legal citations and quotations in the revised draft were accurate without independently verifying them before filing.
Docket entry 52, 7 May 2026 · source · PDF · 1 pages
Docket text. ORDER (BIBAS, CHUNG and MASCOTT, Circuit Judges) The foregoing motion is DENIED. Appellant’s counsel, within 14 days, is ORDERED to show cause why he should not be reprimanded or sanctioned for providing false citations and quotations in his motion. Counsel should explain whether these citations and quotations are the result of artificial intelligence hallucinations and what steps counsel took to check his quotations and citations before filing his motion. Counsel’s letter brief should not exceed three single-spaced pages. Bibas, Authoring Judge. (LMR) [Entered: 05/07/2026 12:34 PM]
Appellant’s counsel, within 14 days, is ORDERED to show cause why he should not be reprimanded or sanctioned for providing false citations and quotations in his motion. Counsel should explain whether these citations and quotations are the result of artificial intelligence hallucinations and what steps counsel took to check his quotations and citations before filing his motion. Counsel’s letter brief should not exceed three single-spaced pages.
What the text mentions
Pattern matches on the documents' text. Each line is a fact that the text contains the words, not a finding about the case.
Tools namedChatGPT, Westlaw AI
Mentionssanctions
Mentionsan order to show cause
Where this fits
This page is a record, not legal advice. It quotes the documents on file and lists what their text mentions. Read the decision at the source before relying on it, and check whether a later order changed it.