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Sanctions — Week of 2026-08-17

25 AI-hallucination sanctions decided between 2026-08-17 and 2026-08-23 (ISO week 2026-W34). 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
25
With monetary penalty
7 of 25
Courts
15
ISO week
2026-W34

Week over week: 25 sanctions filed the week of 2026-08-17 vs 24 sanctions the prior week (2026-08-10) — up 1 from the prior week.

Outcomes this week

  • Warning5
  • Monetary Sanction2
  • Order To Show Cause2
  • Admonishment1
  • Admonishment & Warning1
  • Admonishment; Warning1
  • Adverse Costs (voluntarily Repaid)1
  • Adverse Costs Order1
  • Attorney Keefe Fined $1,500; Ordered To Pay U.s. Bank's Appellate Fees For Researching And Answering The Amended Initial Brief (amount Remanded To Trial Court); Referred To The Florida Bar; Offending Briefs Struck.1
  • Brief Struck; Appeal Dismissed1
  • Costs Denied1
  • Court Found The Filings Relied On Ai-generated Fabricated Case Citations, Admonished Counsel, And Ordered The Plaintiff To Pay Respondent's Costs Of 20,000 Ils; Warned About Uncontrolled Use Of Ai And The Risk Of Future Personal Costs.1
  • Court Warned The Pro Se Plaintiff To Verify All Citations And Quotations, Declined To Impose Sanctions At This Time.1
  • Expert Brief Excluded/struck1
  • Found In Contempt; Removed From The Case; Monetary Sanction; Briefs Stricken And Appeal To Start Anew; Bar Referral.1
  • No Sanctions1

AI tool implicated

  • Implied17
  • Unidentified5
  • ChatGPT1
  • Claude and ChatGPT1
  • Strongsuit1

This week’s read-across

25 rulings landed on the docket between 2026-08-17 and 2026-08-23. The most common recorded outcome this week was Warning (5 of 25). Of the 25 rulings, 7 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 2026-08-17

Perez v. Schaal, et al.

Super. Ct., Sacramento County (Cal.) · Decided 2026-08-20 · Court warned the pro se plaintiff to verify all citations and quotations, declined to impose sanctions at this time. · AI tool: Implied.

Read the full teardown →

Courts represented this week

Nearby weeks

← Prev: 2026-W33 (24)Next: 2026-W35 (23) →

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