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Sanctions — Week of 2026-08-24

23 AI-hallucination sanctions decided between 2026-08-24 and 2026-08-30 (ISO week 2026-W35). 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
23
With monetary penalty
2 of 23
Courts
19
ISO week
2026-W35

Week over week: 23 sanctions filed the week of 2026-08-24 vs 25 sanctions the prior week (2026-08-17) — down 2 from the prior week.

Outcomes this week

  • Warning5
  • Admonishment3
  • Admonishment & Warning3
  • Admonishment; Issue Deemed Waived/underdeveloped For Appeal.1
  • Admonishment; Monetary Fine1
  • Appellate Court Identified The Citation As A Hallucination, Corrected The Authority (pointing To People V. Mott), Declined To Strike The Brief, And Refused To Consider The Unsupported Assertion; No Professional Sanction Imposed.1
  • Bar Referral1
  • Brief Struck1
  • Formal Public Reprimand1
  • Monetary Sanctions; Cle1
  • No Sanctions1
  • Order To Show Cause1
  • Sanctions Imposed: Appellants Sanctioned To Pay Bank Of New York's Appellate Attorney Fees (amount To Be Determined By The Trial Court); Matter Remanded To Determine Fee Award; Court Forwarded Opinion To State Bar For Possible Investigation.1

AI tool implicated

  • Implied17
  • Unidentified5
  • ChatGPT1

This week’s read-across

23 rulings landed on the docket between 2026-08-24 and 2026-08-30. The most common recorded outcome this week was Warning (5 of 23). Of the 23 rulings, 2 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 2026-08-24

Sanja Noble v. WMC Mortgage Corp. et al.

Ill. App. 1st Dist. · Decided 2026-08-28 · Appellate court identified the citation as a hallucination, corrected the authority (pointing to People v. Mott), declined to strike the brief, and refused to consider the unsupported assertion; no professional sanction imposed. · AI tool: Implied.

Read the full teardown →

Varma v. The Bank of New York Mellon

Cal. Ct. App., 4th App. Dist., Div. 2 · Decided 2026-08-27 · Sanctions imposed: appellants sanctioned to pay Bank of New York's appellate attorney fees (amount to be determined by the trial court); matter remanded to determine fee award; court forwarded opinion to State Bar for possible investigation. · AI tool: Unidentified.

Read the full teardown →

Courts represented this week

Nearby weeks

← Prev: 2026-W34 (25)Next: 2026-W36 (1) →

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