Skip to main content
Citation Safe

Was Mandy Pecher v Josef Gregor Habscheid, on the other side of your case?

Check their next brief before they file — Opposition Check verifies every citation in a filed brief for $49, no signup. Get Opposition Check →

Mandy Pecher v Josef Gregor Habscheid,

Court
Michigan CC
Jurisdiction
USA
Decided
2025-06-02
AI tool
ChatGPT
Outcome
Monetary Sanction; Motions denied
Monetary penalty
800 USD

What was hallucinated

Fabricated: Case Law | Multiple fabricated Michigan Court of Appeals unpublished opinions cited in May 9 and May 20 motions; court found the listed opinions do not exist and attributed their creation to ChatGPT. || False Quotes: Legal Norm | Respondent quoted language attributed to MCR 2.603 that does not appear in that rule; court found the quoted text inaccurate and the rule inapplicable to the motion. || Misrepresented: Case Law | Respondent cited Byington v. Byington for the proposition Michigan law requires equitable allocation of tax liabilities and refunds; court found the case exists but does not support that proposition. || Misrepresented: Case Law | Respondent cited Weymers v. Khera as supporting the standard for motions for reconsideration; court found the cited case does not address that standard and does not support the proposition. || Fabricated: Case Law | Multiple non-existent Michigan appellate decisions cited in an April 30, 2026 Motion for Relief from Judgment; respondent later admitted some of these do not exist in a Notice of Errata. || Fabricated: Case Law | Fabricated Michigan appellate opinion cited in a June 5 motion to set aside an order; court found the case does not exist.

Details

As recounted in a subsequent complaint by the Grievance Administrator.

Sanction teardown · Michigan CC, USA · 2025-06-02

Mandy Pecher v Josef Gregor Habscheid,

What happened

In Michigan CC, USA, a filing relied on ChatGPT to help draft legal argument. The court identified the following problems with the citations in that filing:

  • Fabricated (Case Law)
    Multiple fabricated Michigan Court of Appeals unpublished opinions cited in May 9 and May 20 motions; court found the listed opinions do not exist and attributed their creation to ChatGPT.
  • False Quotes (Legal Norm)
    Respondent quoted language attributed to MCR 2.603 that does not appear in that rule; court found the quoted text inaccurate and the rule inapplicable to the motion.
  • Misrepresented (Case Law)
    Respondent cited Byington v. Byington for the proposition Michigan law requires equitable allocation of tax liabilities and refunds; court found the case exists but does not support that proposition.
  • Misrepresented (Case Law)
    Respondent cited Weymers v. Khera as supporting the standard for motions for reconsideration; court found the cited case does not address that standard and does not support the proposition.
  • Fabricated (Case Law)
    Multiple non-existent Michigan appellate decisions cited in an April 30, 2026 Motion for Relief from Judgment; respondent later admitted some of these do not exist in a Notice of Errata.
  • Fabricated (Case Law)
    Fabricated Michigan appellate opinion cited in a June 5 motion to set aside an order; court found the case does not exist.

Which AI tool

ChatGPT. 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

Monetary Sanction; Motions denied (monetary penalty: 800 USD.)

Additional detail

As recounted in a subsequent complaint by the Grievance Administrator.

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: Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).

Don’t be the next case in this database.

Citation Safe checks every citation against primary sources before it reaches a filing.

Try the free checkerBack to database

On the opposing side of their next motion?

Check their next brief through the same engine that would have caught this filing — $49, no signup, full annotated report you can attach to your Rule 11 or sanctions motion.

Open Opposition Check — $49Sanctions-motion template