What was hallucinated

Fabricated: Case Law | Petition cited multiple judicial proceedings that could not be located in Nevo or on the judiciary website; petitioner failed to append the judgments despite a court directive, leading the Court to infer they do not exist. || False Quotes: Case Law | Court stated that, as in Plonit, the petition included quotes that 'never existed,' indicating likely AI-generated sourcing.

Details

AI UseThe judgment refers repeatedly to use of “AI-based websites” and “artificial intelligence hallucinations,” and quotes prior decisions warning against reliance on AI without verification. Although no specific tool was named, the Court inferred use based on the stylistic pattern and total absence of real citations. Petitioner provided no clarification and ultimately sought to withdraw the petition once challenged.Hallucination DetailsThe legal authorities cited in the petition included:Case names and citations that do not exist in Israeli legal databases or official court archivesQuotations and doctrinal references attributed to rulings that were entirely fictitiousSystematic internal inconsistencies and citation errors typical of AI-generated legal writingThe Court made efforts to locate the decisions independently but failed, and the petitioner never supplied the sources after being ordered to do so.Ruling/SanctionThe Court dismissed the petition in limine (on threshold grounds), citing “lack of clean hands” and “deficient legal infrastructure.” It imposed a ₪7,000 costs order against the petitioner and referred to the growing body of jurisprudence on AI hallucinations. The Court explicitly warned that future petitions tainted by similar conduct would face harsher responses, including possible professional discipline.Key Judicial ReasoningJustice Noam Sohlberg, writing for the panel, observed that citing fictitious legal authorities—whether by AI or not—is as egregious as factual misrepresentation. "there is no justification for distinguishing, factually, between one form of deception and another. Deception that would justify the dismissal of a petition due to lack of clean hands—such deception, whether of this kind or that—is invalid in its essence; both forms demand proper judicial response. Their legal identity is the same."

Sanction teardown · High Court, Israel · 2025-02-28

Dog Rights v. Ministry of Agriculture

What happened

In High Court, Israel, a filing relied on an unnamed/unconfirmed AI tool to help draft legal argument. The court identified the following problems with the citations in that filing:

Fabricated (Case Law)

Petition cited multiple judicial proceedings that could not be located in Nevo or on the judiciary website; petitioner failed to append the judgments despite a court directive, leading the Court to infer they do not exist.
False Quotes (Case Law)

Court stated that, as in Plonit, the petition included quotes that 'never existed,' indicating likely AI-generated sourcing.

Which AI tool

an unnamed/unconfirmed AI tool. Note: Charlotin's public database records tool attribution only where a court order, brief, or reporting on the matter states it explicitly; "unidentified" or "implied" means the record indicates AI use but does not name a specific product — we do not guess.

Outcome

Petition dismissed on threshold grounds for lack of clean hands and inadequate legal foundation. Petitioner ordered to pay costs (monetary penalty: 7000 ILS.)

Additional detail

AI UseThe judgment refers repeatedly to use of “AI-based websites” and “artificial intelligence hallucinations,” and quotes prior decisions warning against reliance on AI without verification. Although no specific tool was named, the Court inferred use based on the stylistic pattern and total absence of real citations. Petitioner provided no clarification and ultimately sought to withdraw the petition once challenged.Hallucination DetailsThe legal authorities cited in the petition included:Case names and citations that do not exist in Israeli legal databases or official court archivesQuotations and doctrinal references attributed to rulings that were entirely fictitiousSystematic internal inconsistencies and citation errors typical of AI-generated legal writingThe Court made efforts to locate the decisions independently but failed, and the petitioner never supplied the sources after being ordered to do so.Ruling/SanctionThe Court dismissed the petition in limine (on threshold grounds), citing “lack of clean hands” and “deficient legal infrastructure.” It imposed a ₪7,000 costs order against the petitioner and referred to the growing body of jurisprudence on AI hallucinations. The Court explicitly warned that future petitions tainted by similar conduct would face harsher responses, including possible professional discipline.Key Judicial ReasoningJustice Noam Sohlberg, writing for the panel, observed that citing fictitious legal authorities—whether by AI or not—is as egregious as factual misrepresentation. "there is no justification for distinguishing, factually, between one form of deception and another. Deception that would justify the dismissal of a petition due to lack of clean hands—such deception, whether of this kind or that—is invalid in its essence; both forms demand proper judicial response. Their legal identity is the same."

How Citation Safe would have caught this

Citation Safe runs three deterministic layers before a brief is filed: (1) does the citation exist against CourtListener's database of published opinions, (2) if quoted, does that exact language appear in the source, (3) does the cited case actually support the proposition it is cited for. Fabricated case citations fail Layer 1. Fabricated or misattributed quotations fail Layer 2 even when the underlying case is real. Misrepresented holdings — a real case cited for a proposition it does not support — are the target of Layer 3. None of these checks involve asking another language model whether the citation looks right; they are lookups and text-matches against the actual source, which is why a hallucinated citation has to survive a direct lookup against the authoritative source — not another model's opinion — to earn a VERIFIED stamp; our measured false-verify rate is published live at /quality.

Check a brief before you file it → · See our live false-verify rate

Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/364/Dog_Rights_v._Ministry_of_Agriculture_Israel_February_28_2025.pdf, via Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).