Sanction teardown · Israel · 2025-05-26

Mahala Association (מהל"ה) v. Clalit Health Services et al.

What happened

In Israel, a filing relied on Tachdin.AI to help draft legal argument. The court identified the following problems with the citations in that filing:

• Fabricated (Case Law)
  Cited a non-existent Supreme Court case labeled 'Novartis' to support allowance of 'professional appendices'. Opposing party found no such case with that number or party; court found citations and quotes in the response were non-existent.
• False Quotes (Case Law)
  Quoted language purportedly from Phoenix that does not exist in the judgment; search on Nevo returned no such quote. Court held the response contained quotes that do not exist.
• Misrepresented (Case Law)
  Misrepresented a proceeding as a class action 'Avital' and attributed paras 12 and 15; the case number corresponds to a small-claims vehicle-rental case and the quoted passages are absent. Court held the response included non-existent quotes.
• Misrepresented (Case Law)
  Relied on 'Reprobate & Approbate' via a non-matching case number; the cited number is an administrative appeal about a tender and does not contain the claimed proposition.
• Misrepresented (Case Law)
  Cited 'Hershkowitz' and a specific paragraph as supporting the use of 'professional appendices', but no such decision on that point exists in that file.
• Misrepresented (Case Law)
  Cited a class action docket and paragraph 28 for the aphorism about fleeing to the personal/procedural; the number belongs to a different magistrate civil case and contains no such paragraph.
• Outdated Advice (Overturned Case Law)
  Relied on a Supreme Court decision later vacated by the High Court of Justice, without disclosing annulment; Nevo flags it as cancelled. Court noted the oversight despite claimed new QA procedures.
• Fabricated (Legal Norm)
  Quoted a non-existent text of Civil Procedure Regulation 74(a) (and even cited the wrong vintage) purporting to forbid filing separate interlocutory motions; court held such wording does not exist.
• Misrepresented (Legal Norm)
  Misstated that Class Actions Law s.8(c) bars respondents from splitting preliminary motions; court clarified s.8(c) concerns certification authority, not motion-splitting.
• Fabricated (Exhibits & Submissions)
  Asserted that a 'detailed update notice' was filed on 20.3.2025; docket review showed no such standalone filing—only an attachment to the amended application that drew no decision and was not served.

Which AI tool

Tachdin.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

Class action petition struck from the record; finding that Counsel was not fit to act in this case; Monetary sanctions (monetary penalty: 50000 ILS.)

Additional detail

AI UseCounsel admitted that incorrect citations arose from reliance on an AI-enabled database called “Takdin AI.” The tool generated incorrect references to multiple Supreme Court decisions and falsely cited them as supporting key propositions. Counsel claimed the errors stemmed from time pressure and good faith, but the Court found the explanation inadequate.Hallucination DetailsAt least 8 citations were found to be fictitious or unrelated to the argument, including:Afriedar v. Rosh HaAyin Municipality (Ra'ava 6774/19), which had been overturned and clearly marked as suchPhoenix v. Avital and Novartis decisions, which were either non-existent or misquotedReferences to non-existent sections of the Civil Procedure Regulations and the Class Actions LawThe hallucinated citations were used in response to motions to dismiss and as the basis for substantive legal claims in the class certification request.Ruling/SanctionThe Court:Struck the class certification request due to cumulative procedural abuses and AI hallucinationsExplicitly ruled that the applicant's counsel is not suitable to serve as representative counsel in this proceeding or any similar one filed in its placeImposed monetary fines: (i) The Mahala Association was ordered to pay NIS 10,000 to each of the four respondents (totaling NIS 40,000); Counsel was ordered to pay personal costs: NIS 5,000 to the first respondent (Clalit) and NIS 5,000 to the State Treasury (totaling NIS 10,000).Key Judicial ReasoningThe Court emphasized that the inclusion of hallucinated sources—regardless of intent—subverted proper legal process. Citations must be verified, and AI does not absolve attorneys from professional responsibility. The systemic risks posed by hallucinated filings necessitate a firm response going forward

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/442/Mahala_Association_v._Clalit_Health_Services_et_al._Israel_May_22_2025.pdf, via Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).