AI sanctions reach CA

The appellate sanctions case we all knew would be coming has finally reached California.
In Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P. (2/3) the court imposes $10K in appellate sanctions:

What sets this appeal apart—and the reason we have elected to publish this opinion—is that nearly all of the legal quotations in plaintiff’s opening brief, and many of the quotations in plaintiff’s reply brief, are fabricated. That is, the quotes plaintiff attributes to published cases do not appear in those cases or anywhere else. Further, many of the cases plaintiff cites do not discuss the topics for which they are cited, and a few of the cases do not exist at all. These fabricated legal authorities were created by generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools that plaintiff’s counsel used to draft his appellate briefs. The AI tools created fake legal authority—sometimes referred to as AI “hallucinations”—that were undetected by plaintiff’s counsel because he did not read the cases the AI tools cited.

Although the generation of fake legal authority by AI sources has been widely commented on by federal and out-of-state courts and reported by many media sources, no California court has addressed this issue. We therefore publish this opinion as a warning. Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations— whether provided by generative AI or any other source—that the attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally read and verified. Because plaintiff’s counsel’s conduct in this case violated a basic duty counsel owed to his client and the court, we impose a monetary sanction on counsel, direct him to serve a copy of this opinion on his client, and direct the clerk of the court to serve a copy of this opinion on the State Bar. .... 

We decline to order sanctions payable to opposing counsel. While we have no doubt that such sanctions would be appropriate in some cases, in the present case respondents did not alert the court to the fabricated citations and appear to have become aware of the issue only when the court issued its order to show cause. ....

We conclude by noting that “hallucination” is a particularly apt word to describe the darker consequences of AI. AI hallucinates facts and law to an attorney, who takes them as real and repeats them to a court. This court detected (and rejected) these particular hallucinations. But there are many instances— hopefully not in a judicial setting—where hallucinations are circulated, believed, and become “fact” and “law” in some minds. We all must guard against those instances. As a federal district court recently noted: “There is no room in our court system for the submission of fake, hallucinated case citations, facts, or law. And it is entirely preventable by competent counsel who do their jobs properly and competently.” (Versant, supra, 2025 WL 1440351, at *7.)

[The MetNews has $10,000 Sanction Imposed Based on Fake Quotes in Briefs -- Justices Reject Excuse That Use of Artificial Intelligence Resulted in Fabrications Not Intended by Lawyer; Bloomberg Law has California Appeals Court Blasts Lawyer for AI-Generated Quotes; The Recorder has 
'A Warning': State Court Fines Lawyer $10,000 for AI-Generated Fake Quotes in Briefs; Law360 has Calif. Court Issues AI Hallucinations 'Warning,' Sanctions Atty; the DJ has Benjamin Ikuta's Sanctions and bar referrals show real consequences for AI]

And note Justice Hoffstadt's latest in the DJ is Accentuate the objective: Rethinking bias in California's courtrooms -- California's CCP §231.7 and the Racial Justice Act adopt an objective "reasonable person" standard to evaluate peremptory strikes, charging, and sentencing, addressing both explicit and implicit bias while supplementing existing equal protection safeguards, though practical application and judicial discretion remain evolving and largely untested.

See also Do Law Schools Neglect Appellate Advocacy? Former Judge Pushes for Specialized Training --Too often, appellate law takes a back seat to trial advocacy in law schools, some litigators say. (Featuring H&L's Jeremy Rosen.)

And Senate Committee Advances More Trump Circuit Nominees -- The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Ninth Circuit pick Eric Tung and First Circuit pick Joshua Dunlap in 12-10 votes.