Is it OK if “Actual Authorities” Support the “Bogus” Proposition Set Out in a Hallucinated Case?

[EDRM Editor’s Note: The opinions and positions are those of the author.]

No. Withers v. City of Aberdeen, 2026 WL 1653484 (N.D. Miss. Jun. 8, 2026).

In Withers, “the Court entered an Order to Show Cause … directing all counsel of record in this case to show cause as to why the Court should not impose sanctions against them pursuant to Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Court’s Local Rules, and/or its inherent authority for filing legal memoranda containing hallucinated case citations.”

Four attorneys appeared for a hearing. This blog focuses on only one.

Initially, that attorney asserted that “she had not violated Rule 11 because the legal propositions in her filings were correct….” Id. at *8. However, the court wrote that she “recanted” that position.¹

The court continued: “[N]onetheless, [she] emphasized at the hearing that she had not misrepresented any proposition of law in her filings.” Id. at *8. In my words, no harm, no foul, because real cases said the same thing as hallucinated ones. Id.

The Withers court disagreed: “Other courts have squarely rejected the notion that a Rule 11 violation has not occurred merely because the legal propositions accompanying fake case citations are otherwise true or supported by other cases.” Id. at *8. Quoting a prior decision, the Withers court wrote:

At the threshold, the court rejects the invitation to consider that actual authorities stand for the proposition that the bogus authorities were offered to support. That is a stroke of pure luck for these lawyers, and one that did not remediate the waste and harm their misconduct wrought. Further, any sanctions discount on this basis would amplify the siren call of unverified AI for lawyers who are already confident in their legal conclusion. This court will have no part of that.

Id. at *9 (emphasis added; citation omitted).

Applying the “stroke of luck” principle, the Withers court “simply finds that her observation is irrelevant to the issue at hand.” Id. Instead, the court viewed counsel’s effort to “minimize the violation by emphasizing that the legal propositions in her filings were correct statements of law despite conceding that she had cited fake cases,” id. at *9, an aggravating factor.

One additional point, as to another attorney: “In an era of rampant unverified AI usage within the legal field, this case presents a prime example of the risk associated with serving as a rubberstamp when acting as local counsel.” Id. at *10.

Finally: “the Court finds that referral of all attorneys to the applicable disciplinary body for disciplinary proceedings is warranted and justified under the circumstances.” Id. at *11. “Following entry of this Order, the Clerk of Court shall TERMINATE all four attorneys as counsel of record on the docket in this case.” Id. at *12.

Note

1. The court wrote that “she recanted that position at the show cause hearing while maintaining that the legal contentions in her subject filing were warranted by existing law.” Id. at n. 2. ↩︎

Assisted by GAI and LLM Technologies per EDRM’s GAI and LLM Policy.