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Sanctions — Week of 2026-02-16

27 AI-hallucination sanctions decided between 2026-02-16 and 2026-02-22 (ISO week 2026-W08). Every ruling below is sourced from the public docket — case name, decided date, outcome, AI tool implicated (when named), and any monetary penalty language pulled verbatim from the ruling.

Week at a glance

Total rulings
27
With monetary penalty
3 of 27
Courts
20
ISO week
2026-W08

Week over week: 27 sanctions filed the week of 2026-02-16 vs 41 sanctions the prior week (2026-02-09) — down 14 from the prior week.

Outcomes this week

  • Warning7
  • Monetary Sanction3
  • Order To Show Cause2
  • Allowed To Refile Brief1
  • Appeal Dismissed1
  • Brief Struck1
  • Court Declined To Exclude The Expert Based On The Ai-generated/incorrect Citations; Issue Reserved For Cross-examination; Motion To Exclude Denied.1
  • Upcoming Sanction1

AI tool implicated

  • Implied20
  • Unidentified6
  • ChatGPT1

This week’s read-across

27 rulings landed on the docket between 2026-02-16 and 2026-02-22. The most common recorded outcome this week was Warning (7 of 27). Of the 27 rulings, 3 carried an explicit monetary penalty in the ruling text.

Implied was the most-implicated AI tool this week (courts rarely require the attorney to name the tool by product name on the record; “Implied” means the ruling described an AI-generated brief without a product name).

The pattern each week is remarkably stable: existence failures (Layer 1) dominate. Attorneys file briefs containing citations that do not exist in any primary source — usually because a general-purpose LLM fabricated the citation and no deterministic pre-filing check caught it. Every ruling below is a preventable filing. See /verify for the pre-filing tool.

All rulings, week of 2026-02-16

Courts represented this week

Nearby weeks

← Prev: 2026-W07 (41)Next: 2026-W09 (30) →

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Informational only. Not legal advice. Data derived from public court records; corrections at /contact.