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Citation Safe

Sanctions — Week of 2026-05-04

39 AI-hallucination sanctions decided between 2026-05-04 and 2026-05-10 (ISO week 2026-W19). 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
39
With monetary penalty
12 of 39
Courts
29
ISO week
2026-W19

Week over week: 39 sanctions filed the week of 2026-05-04 vs 47 sanctions the prior week (2026-04-27) — down 8 from the prior week.

Outcomes this week

  • Warning8
  • Admonishment2
  • Monetary Fine; Bar Referral2
  • Monetary Sanction2
  • Order To Show Cause2
  • Admonishment In Court1
  • Admonishment; 6-month Suspension From Appearing Before The Supreme Court; 12 Hours Cle; Trial Court Order Vacated And Case Remanded1
  • Admonishment; Taken Into Account For Adverse Cost Order1
  • Affirmed On Appeal Earlier Dismissal With Prejudice1
  • Case Dismissed With Prejudice As Sanction1
  • Cle; Firm Procedures And Certification; Serve Order To Plaintiff; Brief Struck1
  • Counsel Apologized1
  • Double Costs Awarded As Sanction1
  • Monetary Order1
  • Monetary Sanction (not To Be Passed To Client)1
  • Monetary Sanction Affirmed1
  • Monetary Sanction; Serve Order On Client And Bar; Cle1
  • Ongoing1
  • Public Reprimand; Notice To Client; Monetary Sanction1

AI tool implicated

  • Implied25
  • Unidentified10
  • Centient AI1
  • Claude or ChatGPT1
  • Claude, ChatGPT, Westlaw, Lexis1
  • Not specified1

This week’s read-across

39 rulings landed on the docket between 2026-05-04 and 2026-05-10. The most common recorded outcome this week was Warning (8 of 39). Of the 39 rulings, 12 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 2026-05-04

Courts represented this week

Nearby weeks

← Prev: 2026-W18 (47)Next: 2026-W20 (27) →

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