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Repeated AI-fabricated citations cost client the entire case

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Feb 2026

Attorney Steven Feldman filed multiple motions containing AI-fabricated case citations in Flycatcher Corp. v. Affable Avenue LLC. Despite explicit court warnings and access to Westlaw and Lexis, he continued submitting unverified AI output -- even using AI to draft his response to the court's show-cause order, which contained yet more fake citations. Judge Failla imposed the most severe AI-hallucination sanction yet: default judgment against his client.

Incident Details

Perpetrator:Attorney
Severity:Catastrophic
Blast Radius:Client lost the entire case via terminal sanction; attorney faces fees under Rule 11 and 28 U.S.C. 1927; most severe consequence yet for AI citation fabrication in U.S. courts