What was hallucinated

Misrepresented: Case Law | Plaintiffs cited 'White v. Olathe Housing Auth., 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6029 (D. Kan. 1997)', but the court noted the reporter entry corresponds to Shakman v. Democratic Org., 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6029 (N.D. Ill. 1997), reflecting an inaccurate/misplaced citation. || Fabricated: Case Law | Plaintiffs cited 'Bourne v. Gatliff Building Co., 380 F.3d 848 (5th Cir. 2004)', a citation the court found does not appear to exist and noted the closest match is Matchett v. Dretke, 380 F.3d 844 (5th Cir. 2004). || Misrepresented: Case Law | Plaintiffs cited 'Corey v. Secretary of Housing & Urban Dev., 719 F.2d 122 (5th Cir. 1983)', but the court identified the correct reporter/volume corresponds to Baber v. Edman, 719 F.2d 122 (5th Cir. 1983), indicating a misattributed case name.

Sanction teardown · D. Maryland, USA · 2026-01-16

Tafah et al. v. Lake Village Townhomes et al.

What happened

In D. Maryland, USA, 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:

Misrepresented (Case Law)

Plaintiffs cited 'White v. Olathe Housing Auth., 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6029 (D. Kan. 1997)', but the court noted the reporter entry corresponds to Shakman v. Democratic Org., 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6029 (N.D. Ill. 1997), reflecting an inaccurate/misplaced citation.
Fabricated (Case Law)

Plaintiffs cited 'Bourne v. Gatliff Building Co., 380 F.3d 848 (5th Cir. 2004)', a citation the court found does not appear to exist and noted the closest match is Matchett v. Dretke, 380 F.3d 844 (5th Cir. 2004).
Misrepresented (Case Law)

Plaintiffs cited 'Corey v. Secretary of Housing & Urban Dev., 719 F.2d 122 (5th Cir. 1983)', but the court identified the correct reporter/volume corresponds to Baber v. Edman, 719 F.2d 122 (5th Cir. 1983), indicating a misattributed case name.

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

Warning

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/1481/Tafah_v._Lake_Village_Townhomes_USA_16_January_2026.pdf, via Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).

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