Published opinion, 1 April 2026 · source · PDF · 7 pages
We answer no, at least on the facts present here—where the biological mother has no recent relationship with the child. And we address an issue with artificial intelligence hallucinating case citations before assuming without deciding we can reach the merits. BACKGROUND FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS In 2020, we affirmed on appeal the termination of K.M.’s parental rights to two children, including the child now known as W.G.
Since neither party contests appellate jurisdiction, we leave this question for another day, and we grant extraordinary review to the extent necessary. 4 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND HALLUCINATED CASE CITATIONS After this case was transferred to our court, we discovered that K.M.’s petition on appeal appeared to have been drafted by or with the assistance of generative artificial intelligence (AI). It included at least one citation to a non- existent Iowa appellate decision and asserted multiple propositions of law that were nowhere to be found in the cited authorities.
1, 2025). Most pertinent here, we note that using AI in legal matters carries the risk of AI “hallucinating” or fabricating legal authorities that do not actually exist. See Thomas A.
L. 115, 121–22 (2025) (“[AI] may ʻsometimes even make up facts.’ This includes fabricating case citations, even if the proposition it is citing the case for is correct or misstating the holding of a case that exists.” (footnotes omitted)). Like in R.A., we entered an order here directing K.M. to file copies of the problematic cases and providing that, if she was unable to do so, she was required to disclose whether she used AI to draft her petition on appeal.
In her response to the court’s order, K.M. admitted that the case we believed to be hallucinated was in fact “non-existent” and her citation “d[id] not correspond to any Iowa appellate decision. ” She also admitted that AI led her to “attribut[e] specific propositions” of law to a case in which those propositions “do not appear.” And she disclosed that she prepared the petition using the paid version of the AI tool Perplexity.
While we appreciate that K.M. has expressly vowed, going forward, to independently check and verify all citations in her filings, that is the bare minimum we expect from litigants. In her response, K.M. recognized that filing pleadings with fabricated citations is a serious matter and undermines the “integrity of the judicial process.” We agree. K.M.’s fabricated citation has caused substantial expenditure of judicial resources and delayed resolution of this appeal.
K.M.’s fabricated citation has caused substantial expenditure of judicial resources and delayed resolution of this appeal. Last, K.M. asks that we allow her to “withdraw” her fabricated citation and decide this appeal on the merits. We think we would be justified in striking the entirety of her petition on appeal and dismissing the appeal or summarily affirming the ruling below on that basis.
However, as a matter of grace and in an exercise of our discretion, we elect a lesser sanction here. We strike the problematic portions of K.M.’s petition on appeal and consider only the arguments we can discern without the taint of the fabricated and false citations. We thus assume without deciding we can reach the merits, in part to provide finality on this issue to the child affected by this juvenile proceeding.