Lawyer’s “Repeated Claims That the Spurious Citations Resulted from Clerical Errors Unrelated to the Use of Generative AI Are Not Credible”

From Monday’s opinion by Justice Frank Menetrez, joined by Justices Richard Fields and Michael Raphael, in Schlichter v. Kennedy:

Grotke’s approach differs from those taken by the attorneys in Noland and Alvarez [two previous cases involving hallucinated citations]. Grotke has not admitted that the Writ and the AOB [Appellant’s Opening Brief] contain hallucinated citations that were produced by generative AI. Grotke admitted that he used AI in some fashion when preparing the AOB and that it was “possible” that he used AI in some fashion when preparing the Writ. But he maintains that the four spurious citations resulted from clerical error and that he intended to cite the actually existing cases for the propositions described in the declaration that he filed in response to our order to show cause. We find that Grotke’s claims are not credible.

It is difficult to understand how Grotke’s four spurious citations could possibly be mere clerical errors, and Grotke has not intelligibly explained how it would be possible. The spurious citations do not involve the mere omission or addition or transposition of one or several digits. Rather, all four spurious citations are completely different from the correct citations for the actually existing cases that have those case names. Grotke’s spurious citations bear the hallmarks of hallucinated citations produced by generative AI. “[H]allucinated cases look like real cases. They are identified by a case name, a citation to a reporter, the name of a district or appellate court, and the year of the decision. [Citation.] But, they are not real cases.”

Grotke’s claim that he intended to cite the actually existing cases is similarly lacking in credibility. The actually existing cases do not support the legal propositions for which Grotke provided the spurious citations in the Writ and the AOB. Consequently, it would make no sense for Grotke to claim that he intended to cite the actually existing cases to support those legal propositions. Grotke attempts to avoid that problem by claiming that he cited the four cases for various other legal propositions, which he describes in his declaration. But the attempt fails, because the legal propositions described in his declaration are not the legal propositions in the Writ and the AOB for which the spurious citations were provided as authority.

For all of these reasons, we conclude that Grotke’s repeated claims that the spurious citations resulted from clerical errors unrelated to the use of generative AI are not credible.

Other parts of Grotke’s response show a similar lack of candor and credibility. Grotke claimed in his declaration that the spurious citations “resulted from a breakdown in [his] citation-verification process during compilation from vLex.” But Grotke admitted at the hearing that before receiving our order of September 19, 2025, he had never signed up for or had a membership on vLex but merely used it “on and off” or “here and there.”

Insofar as Grotke claims that he did check the four cases—by searching for them either by case name or by volume and page number citation—before filing the Writ and the AOB, the claim is not credible. If Grotke had tried to check the cases by volume and page number citations, then he would have discovered that the cases do not exist. Grotke admits that is what happened when he searched for the cases in response to our order of September 19, 2025. And if Grotke had tried to check the cases by case names, then he would have discovered that the actually existing cases do not stand for the propositions for which he was citing them.

We agree with Noland and Alvarez that “attorneys must check every citation to make sure the case exists and the citations are correct. [Citation.] Attorneys should not cite cases for legal propositions different from those contained in the cases cited. [Citation.] And attorneys cannot delegate this responsibility to any form of technology; this is the responsibility of a competent attorney.” As explained by Alvarez, “[h]onesty in dealing with the courts is of paramount importance, and misleading a judge is, regardless of motives, a serious offense.”

For all of the foregoing reasons, we find that Grotke has failed to show cause why he should not be sanctioned for relying on fabricated legal authority in the Writ and the AOB…. [W]e issue a sanction in the amount of $1,750 to be paid by Grotke individually …. We direct the Clerk of this court to notify the State Bar of the sanctions against Grotke.

I e-mailed the lawyer to see if he had a response, and he said this:

The cases were real, not hallucinations, though I have seen AI hallucinate cases in the past.  The cites were just mistaken as to where they were located, page number, volume, etc. I reviewed the cases and included them because they were relevant. I believed that I had the correct cites because they were relevant, but somewhere along the way, maybe AI being the cause, I obtained the wrong cites. As I explained to the court, if I knew exactly why they were incorrect, they would not have been submitted that way.