Docket entry 46, 28 April 2026 · source · PDF · 12 pages
Docket text. ORDER GRANTING MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT 31 32 AND IMPOSING SANCTIONS by Judge Otis D. Wright, II. For the reasons discussed above, the Court GRANTS Transdev's and Ogilvie's Motions for Summary Judgment. (Dkts. No. 31, 32.) Judgme nt shall issue. The Court also SANCTIONS Chaney's counsel $2,500.00 for bad faith conduct, including using AI-generated and hallucinated caselaw without verification three times, payable to the Court. Chaney's counsel shall remit p ayment to the Court no later than MAY 28, 2026 and shall file proof of payment in this case by that date. Chaney's counsel shall also file a declaration, no later than MAY 12, 2026. For every judge in the Central District before whom Chaney's attorney is not currently appearing, the Court ORDERS him to email the declaration, no later than MAY 12, 2026, to each judges chambers email. (SEE DOCUMENT FOR FURTHER DETAILS) (chk)
No. 35.) Notably, while Gabriel admitted to fabricating In re Shubert in Chaney’s opposition to Ogilvie’s Motion, Gabirel failed to mention, in either his initial declaration or in his response to the Court’s Order to Show Cause, that the same, fabricated case also appeared twice more in the opposition to Transdev’s Motion. Courts have “the inherent authority to impose sanctions for bad faith, which includes a broad range of willful improper conduct.” Fink v.
Two overarching factors drive the Court’s sanctions order. First, the imposition of sanctions for submitting generative-AI hallucinations is so well-documented at this point that the Court finds the failure to verify citations after using generative -AI rises to the level of bad faith. According to one source, in the United States alone, there have been 915 legal opinions addressing the improper use of generative -AI in the last three years.
According to one source, in the United States alone, there have been 915 legal opinions addressing the improper use of generative -AI in the last three years. See Damien Carlotin, AI Hallucination Cases , https://www.damiencharlotin.com/hallucinations/ (last visited Apr. 26, 2026).
26, 2026). Courts in this District have begun ordering heavy sanctions against attorneys caught using fabricated cases generated by AI. See, e.g. , N.Z. v.
Dec. 12, 2025) (ordering $13,000 in sanctions against plaintiffs’ counsel for filing briefs containing hallucinated authority). Any attorney diligently fulfilling his or her “duty to keep abreast of the changes in the law and its practice , including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology ,” Cal.
Second, and perhaps more egregious, is Gabriel’s apparent attempts to hide his misconduct. In his initial declaration, Gabriel buries his use of fabricated authority between multiple paragraphs of improper sur-responses to Defendants’ reply briefs. (See Gabriel Decl.
(See Gabriel Decl. (containing eleven paragraphs, only two of which address his misuse of generative-AI).) Moreover, Gabriel initially presented the hallucinated case as a mere copy-and-paste error, (id . ¶¶ 5–6); only after the Court ordered Gabriel to show cause did Gabriel admit to using generative -AI without verification. ( See Gabriel OSC Decl.) To make matters worse, in neither declaration did Gabriel acknowledge that the fabricated citation appeared tw ice more in a second brief, separate from the one that Gabriel initially acknowledged .
Monetary sanctions are required to attempt to deter this conduct. However, the Court is also cognizant that monetary sanctions have proved inadequate deterre nce generally, as the submission of fabricated case citations continues to occur throughout the country, on a near -daily basis. Thus, the Court impose s $500 in sanctions for Gabriel’s use of In re Shubert in his opposition to Ogilvie’s motion for summary judgment, and $1,000 in sanctions for each of Gabriel’s two uses of In re Shubert in his opposition to Transdev’s motion for summary judgment, totaling $2,500.