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Court of Appeal:
$10,000 Sanction Imposed Based on Fake Quotes in Briefs
Justices Reject Excuse That Use of Artificial Intelligence Resulted in Fabrications Not Intended by Lawyer
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. Three of the Court of Appeal for this district yesterday imposed a $10,000 sanction on a lawyer for use of fabricated legal authority in his briefs, resulting from reliance on artificial intelligence, and issued a warning to the bar to avoid similar misconduct.
Attorney Amir Mostafavi—who lists a U.S. Post Office as his address on the State Bar website and a UPS shipping outlet on his briefs—was ordered to pay the money to the court clerk “no later than 30 days after the remittitur is filed” on Nov. 12 and “within 15 days of the issuance of the remittitur, to provide a copy of this opinion to his client and to file a certification in this court that he has done so.”
The client is Sylvia Noland who appealed from a summary judgment awarded by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephen I. Goorvitch to defendants Land of the Free, L.P. and Jose Luis Nazar.
Presiding Justice Lee Edmon wrote:
“This appeal is, in most respects, unremarkable. Plaintiff filed a complaint alleging a variety of employment-related claims, and the trial court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment, finding no triable issues as to any of those claims. Plaintiff challenges the grant of summary judgment on several grounds, none of which raises any novel questions of law or requires us to apply settled law in a unique factual context. In short, this is in most respects a straightforward appeal that, under normal circumstances, would not warrant publication.
“What sets this appeal apart—and the reason we have elected to publish this opinion—is that nearly all of the legal quotations in plaintiffs opening brief, and many of the quotations in plaintiffs reply brief, are fabricated. That is, the quotes plaintiff attributes to published cases do not appear in those cases or anywhere else. Further, many of the cases plaintiff cites do not discuss the topics for which they are cited, and a few of the cases do not exist at all. These fabricated legal authorities were created by generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools that plaintiffs counsel used to draft his appellate briefs. The AI tools created fake legal authority—sometimes referred to as AI ‘hallucinations’—that were undetected by plaintiffs counsel because he did not read the cases the AI tools cited.”
Edmon continued:
“Although the generation of fake legal authority by AI sources has been widely commented on by federal and out-of- state courts and reported by many media sources, no California court has addressed this issue. We therefore publish this opinion as a warning. Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations— whether provided by generative AI or any other source—that the attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally read and verified.”
Sanction Warranted
Mostafavi argued that sanctions should not be imposed on him because the “citation irregularities,” though “regrettable,” were not intended—that he simply did not check the quotes that were generated “against more reliable sources.”
Edmon pointed out that an attorney may be sanctioned under Code of Civil Procedure §128.7 for filing a frivolous appeal and said that Noland’s appeal is of that nature because it lacks a solid foundation “and is peppered with fabricated legal citations.”
Even where an appeal is not frivolous, she noted, sanctions may be imposed under California Rules of Court, rule 8.276, as authorizing sanctions where a party “has been guilty of any...unreasonable infraction of the rules...as the circumstances of the case and the discouragement of like conduct in the future may require.” The jurist wrote that “courts have, in appropriate cases, sanctioned attorneys for including improper material in appellate briefs or failing to support assertions of law with legal authority.”
She continued:
“To state the obvious, it is a fundamental duty of attorneys to read the legal authorities they cite in appellate briefs or any other court filings to determine that the authorities stand for the propositions for which they are cited. Plainly, counsel did not read the cases he cited before filing his appellate briefs: Had he read them, he would have discovered, as we did, that the cases did not contain the language he purported to quote, did not support the propositions for which they were cited, or did not exist.”
The presiding justice declared:
“Attorney Mostafavi’s fabricated citations and erroneous statements of law have required this court to spend excessive time on this otherwise straightforward appeal to attempt to track down fabricated legal authority and then to research the issues presented without plaintiffs assistance. We therefore conclude that an award of sanctions payable to the court is appropriate.”
Merits Addressed
Edmon commented that the use of phony quotes would justify striking Mostafavi’s brief, because there was nothing to suggest that Noland knew of the chicanery and the defendants/respondents had “addressed plaintiff’s contentions on the merits, we will do the same.”
She reviewed the contentions on appeal and concluded that Goorvitch “did not err by granting summary judgment for defendants.”
The case is Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P., B331918.
Beverly Hills attorney Michael Yadegari represented the respondents.
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