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Sanctions — Week of 2026-04-20

29 AI-hallucination sanctions decided between 2026-04-20 and 2026-04-26 (ISO week 2026-W17). 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
29
With monetary penalty
8 of 29
Courts
15
ISO week
2026-W17

Week over week: 29 sanctions filed the week of 2026-04-20 vs 19 sanctions the prior week (2026-04-13) — up 10 from the prior week.

Outcomes this week

  • Warning7
  • Admonishment3
  • Adverse Costs Order; Doubled Costs; Filing Prohibition; Bar Referral1
  • Arbitral Award Annulled Because The Award Relied On Nonexistent ('hallucinated') Authorities.1
  • Brief Struck; Adverse Costs Order1
  • Leave To Represent The Corporation Refused; Interlocutory Application Dismissed; Costs Awarded To The Plaintiff.1
  • Monetary Fine1
  • Monetary Fine; Bar Referral; Refusal To File Corrected Brief1
  • Monetary Sanction, Additional Cle1
  • Monetary Sanction; Bar Referral1
  • One-month Suspension From Practice; Monetary Fine1
  • Order To Show Cause1
  • Sra Referral1

AI tool implicated

  • Implied22
  • Unidentified6
  • ChatGPT1

This week’s read-across

29 rulings landed on the docket between 2026-04-20 and 2026-04-26. The most common recorded outcome this week was Warning (7 of 29). Of the 29 rulings, 8 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 2026-04-20

Courts represented this week

Nearby weeks

← Prev: 2026-W16 (19)Next: 2026-W18 (47) →

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