What was hallucinated

Fabricated: Case Law | Counsel cited a nonexistent case said to be RA"A 7739/18 פלוני נ' המוסד לביטוח לאומי as supporting discharge of NII maintenance debt; court could not locate it and counsel admitted the decisions do not exist. || Fabricated: Case Law | Counsel cited a nonexistent district bankruptcy case allegedly Psh"r (Tel Aviv) 36227-05-18 פלוני נ' כונס הנכסים הרשמי; court could not locate it and counsel admitted it does not exist. || Fabricated: Case Law | Counsel cited a nonexistent district bankruptcy case allegedly Psh"r (Haifa) 17433-07-16 פלוני נ' כונס הנכסים הרשמי; court could not locate it and counsel admitted it does not exist. || Fabricated: Case Law | Counsel cited a nonexistent district bankruptcy case allegedly Psh"r (Be'er Sheva) 29271-10-16 פלוני נ' כונס הנכסים הרשמי; court could not locate it and counsel admitted it does not exist. || Misrepresented: Case Law | Counsel mischaracterized Skok as allowing discharge of a maintenance debt owed to the NII; court held Skok only permits discharge for a debtor’s liability arising from guaranteeing another’s maintenance debt.

Details

AI UseCounsel admitted the fictitious citations originated from an “online legal database commonly used by lawyers.” Though the platform is unnamed, the court ruled out the standard legal database Nevo and concluded the “source of the hallucination is unclear.” Counsel apologized and claimed no intent to mislead.Hallucination DetailsThe motion cited ten fabricated decisions—each with full party names, court locations, file numbers, and dates—purportedly showing that indirect child support debts owed to the National Insurance Institute could be discharged in bankruptcy. The court could not find a single one in any judicial database and ordered counsel to produce them. When he failed, he admitted they were inauthentic. The only real cited case (Skok) did not support the petitioner’s position.Ruling/SanctionThe court dismissed the petition after finding that: (i) the cited decisions were fabricated; (ii) the only valid case did not support the argument; and (iii) under Israel’s Bankruptcy Ordinance, child support debts are not dischargeable by default. Despite the state’s failure to respond, the judge ruled sua sponte and imposed ₪1,000 in costs for procedural abuse.Key Judicial ReasoningJudge Saharai held that even if the hallucinated cases were cited inadvertently, their submission constituted a grave failure to meet professional obligations. He emphasized that a court cannot function when presented with legal fictions dressed up as precedent. The decision cited the attorney’s duty under section 54 of the Bar Law (1961) and ethics rules 2 and 34.

Sanction teardown · Magistrate Court, Israel · 2024-12-10

Hamdan v. the National Insurance Institute

What happened

In Magistrate 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)

Counsel cited a nonexistent case said to be RA"A 7739/18 פלוני נ' המוסד לביטוח לאומי as supporting discharge of NII maintenance debt; court could not locate it and counsel admitted the decisions do not exist.
Fabricated (Case Law)

Counsel cited a nonexistent district bankruptcy case allegedly Psh"r (Tel Aviv) 36227-05-18 פלוני נ' כונס הנכסים הרשמי; court could not locate it and counsel admitted it does not exist.
Fabricated (Case Law)

Counsel cited a nonexistent district bankruptcy case allegedly Psh"r (Haifa) 17433-07-16 פלוני נ' כונס הנכסים הרשמי; court could not locate it and counsel admitted it does not exist.
Fabricated (Case Law)

Counsel cited a nonexistent district bankruptcy case allegedly Psh"r (Be'er Sheva) 29271-10-16 פלוני נ' כונס הנכסים הרשמי; court could not locate it and counsel admitted it does not exist.
Misrepresented (Case Law)

Counsel mischaracterized Skok as allowing discharge of a maintenance debt owed to the NII; court held Skok only permits discharge for a debtor’s liability arising from guaranteeing another’s maintenance debt.

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; ₪1,000 costs imposed for procedural misconduct and reliance on fictitious case law (monetary penalty: 1000 ILS.)

Additional detail

AI UseCounsel admitted the fictitious citations originated from an “online legal database commonly used by lawyers.” Though the platform is unnamed, the court ruled out the standard legal database Nevo and concluded the “source of the hallucination is unclear.” Counsel apologized and claimed no intent to mislead.Hallucination DetailsThe motion cited ten fabricated decisions—each with full party names, court locations, file numbers, and dates—purportedly showing that indirect child support debts owed to the National Insurance Institute could be discharged in bankruptcy. The court could not find a single one in any judicial database and ordered counsel to produce them. When he failed, he admitted they were inauthentic. The only real cited case (Skok) did not support the petitioner’s position.Ruling/SanctionThe court dismissed the petition after finding that: (i) the cited decisions were fabricated; (ii) the only valid case did not support the argument; and (iii) under Israel’s Bankruptcy Ordinance, child support debts are not dischargeable by default. Despite the state’s failure to respond, the judge ruled sua sponte and imposed ₪1,000 in costs for procedural abuse.Key Judicial ReasoningJudge Saharai held that even if the hallucinated cases were cited inadvertently, their submission constituted a grave failure to meet professional obligations. He emphasized that a court cannot function when presented with legal fictions dressed up as precedent. The decision cited the attorney’s duty under section 54 of the Bar Law (1961) and ethics rules 2 and 34.

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/366/Hamdon_v._the_National_Insurance_Institute_Israel_December_12_2024.pdf, via Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).