Benjamin v. State
Decided 2026-08-25 · Outcome: Admonishment · AI tool: Implied.
10 sanctioned cases on record in CA Maryland where an attorney filed briefs, motions, or other pleadings containing AI-fabricated citations. Every entry below traces to a real, publicly reported court ruling. Data pulled daily from the underlying dockets and reporter databases — last update within 24 hours.
How courts in CA Maryland have responded when a filing contained fabricated citations.
Filings in this jurisdiction most often cite the tool as “Implied” (the ruling describes an AI-generated brief but does not name a product).
Across 10 documented sanctions in CA Maryland, the most common judicial response is Admonishment (1 of 10). None of the 10 rulings on record specified a dollar-figure monetary penalty in the docket text — but reputational, bar-referral, and case-standing consequences apply regardless.
The rulings in this jurisdiction are consistent with the pattern Citation Safe tracks nationally: when a court identifies a fabricated citation, the sanction almost always follows within days, not weeks. The attorney of record — not the AI — is on the hook. Rule 11 (federal), state analogs, and inherent authority all support monetary sanctions, disgorgement, adverse-costs orders, and bar referrals independent of the tool that produced the citation.
Practical implication: any brief that reaches a docket in CA Maryland needs a citation-existence check before filing. Existence is Layer 1 — the case has to be real. Layer 2 is quote accuracy (any quoted language must actually appear in the opinion). Layer 3 is propositional support (the opinion must actually stand for what you cite it for). Every documented sanction below failed at Layer 1 or Layer 2 — the kind of failure that is trivially catchable before filing and catastrophically visible after.
Decided 2026-08-25 · Outcome: Admonishment · AI tool: Implied.
Decided 2026-07-20 · Outcome: Briefs partly struck · AI tool: Implied.
Decided 2026-06-16 · Outcome: Bar Referral · AI tool: Implied.
Decided 2026-06-04 · AI tool: Implied.
Decided 2026-05-20 · Outcome: Warning · AI tool: Implied.
Decided 2026-04-29 · Outcome: Brief Partly Struck · AI tool: Implied.
Decided 2026-04-23 · AI tool: Implied.
Decided 2026-01-14 · Outcome: Order to Show Cause · AI tool: Implied.
Decided 2025-10-29 · Outcome: Referral to Attorney Grievance Commission · AI tool: ChatGPT.
Decided 2025-09-09 · Outcome: Allegations on Appeal · AI tool: Implied.
Other courts on the Citation Safe sanctions database with a similar volume of AI-hallucination rulings on record.
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Informational only. Not legal advice. Data derived from public court records; corrections at /contact.