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Flycatcher v. Affable Avenue

Court
S.D. New York
Jurisdiction
USA
Decided
2026-02-05
AI tool
NotebookLM; vLex; Paxton AI
Outcome
Brief Struck; Default Judgment
Monetary penalty
None reported

What was hallucinated

Fabricated: Case Law | Affable's motion to dismiss included numerous non-existent case citations generated by AI; Opposing counsel identified at least 13 fabricated cases and the Court found 14 of 60 citations to be fake. || Fabricated: Case Law | Proposed reply brief cited a nonexistent "Himmelstein v. Comcast of the D.C., LLC, 908 F.3d 49; aff'g 44 F. Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2012)"—citations that do not exist and were inconsistent with the intended New York Court of Appeals decision. || False Quotes: Case Law | Response to Order to Show Cause quoted a passage presented as from Mata v. Avianca but the quoted language was actually from a secondary article by Christopher F. Lyon; counsel failed to attribute the quote properly. || Misrepresented: Case Law | Reply brief and subsequent explanations showed misattributed/mismatched reporter citations (e.g., counsel relied on a Google Scholar result for Himmelstein that returned unrelated D.D.C. citations like 931 F. Supp. 2d 48), reflecting AI- or search-induced misrepresentation of the authoritative source.

Details

Counsel Steven A. Feldman repeatedly filed submissions containing AI-generated nonexistent case citations and misattributed quotations. Opposing counsel flagged numerous errors; the Court found fabricated citations and false quotes, concluded counsel acted in bad faith or with conscious avoidance, struck the filings, and entered default judgment against counsel's client Affable Avenue LLC. The Court permitted opposing counsel to apply for attorneys' fees.

Sanction teardown · S.D. New York, USA · 2026-02-05

Flycatcher v. Affable Avenue

What happened

In S.D. New York, USA, a filing relied on NotebookLM; vLex; Paxton AI to help draft legal argument. The court identified the following problems with the citations in that filing:

  • Fabricated (Case Law)
    Affable's motion to dismiss included numerous non-existent case citations generated by AI; Opposing counsel identified at least 13 fabricated cases and the Court found 14 of 60 citations to be fake.
  • Fabricated (Case Law)
    Proposed reply brief cited a nonexistent "Himmelstein v. Comcast of the D.C., LLC, 908 F.3d 49; aff'g 44 F. Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2012)"—citations that do not exist and were inconsistent with the intended New York Court of Appeals decision.
  • False Quotes (Case Law)
    Response to Order to Show Cause quoted a passage presented as from Mata v. Avianca but the quoted language was actually from a secondary article by Christopher F. Lyon; counsel failed to attribute the quote properly.
  • Misrepresented (Case Law)
    Reply brief and subsequent explanations showed misattributed/mismatched reporter citations (e.g., counsel relied on a Google Scholar result for Himmelstein that returned unrelated D.D.C. citations like 931 F. Supp. 2d 48), reflecting AI- or search-induced misrepresentation of the authoritative source.

Which AI tool

NotebookLM; vLex; Paxton AI. 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

Brief Struck; Default Judgment

Additional detail

Counsel Steven A. Feldman repeatedly filed submissions containing AI-generated nonexistent case citations and misattributed quotations. Opposing counsel flagged numerous errors; the Court found fabricated citations and false quotes, concluded counsel acted in bad faith or with conscious avoidance, struck the filings, and entered default judgment against counsel's client Affable Avenue LLC. The Court permitted opposing counsel to apply for attorneys' fees.

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.

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Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/1460/Flycatcher_v._Affable_Avenue_USA_5_February_2026.pdf, via Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).

Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/1460/Flycatcher_v._Affable_Avenue_USA_5_February_2026.pdf

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