{"schema_version":"0.10.0","id":"LR-2026-0436","record_version":1,"title":"Judge tosses case over fake AI citations, including references to Fahrenheit 451","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":50.5,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":15.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":0.0,"completeness":1.92,"unhedged_language":5.0},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true,"eligible":true,"about_this_case":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-11-01","extraction_run_id":null,"evidence_level":{"level":"preliminary","reason":"1 report: Ars Technica · subject to change","original_document":null,"reports_total":2,"reports_independent":1,"reports_derivative":0,"developing":false,"disputed":false,"rules_version":"evidence-2026-10-29.1","computed_at":"2026-11-01","history":[{"date":"2026-11-01","from_level":null,"to_level":"preliminary","reason":"1 report: Ars Technica · subject to change"}]},"sources_hash":"b8229c1580bbaac38eb7b7ef639d4ba84c557cb47504115deacf447b1524cf4a"},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"unknown","harness":null,"tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":null,"lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":null,"safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2026-02-06","incident_class":"hallucination","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":null,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"unknown","summary":"An attorney, Steven Feldman, used AI when drafting court filings in a New York federal case, and some of those filings contained fake citations. When asked to correct the filings, he kept responding with new documents that also contained fake citations. One filing drew the court's notice for its florid prose, including an extended quote from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla found the extraordinary sanctions warranted and terminated the case. The judge suspected AI helped write the filings, but the attorney testified that he wrote every word himself. He said he had read the Bradbury book many years earlier and wanted to include personal things in that filing.","tags":[],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":null,"root_cause_detail":null,"failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":null,"adversarial_actor":null,"input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":null,"precursor_events":null},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":null,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"minor","harm_class":[],"affected_description":null,"protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":[],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":null,"downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/randomly-quoting-ray-bradbury-did-not-save-lawyer-from-losing-case-over-ai-errors/","publisher":"Ars Technica","date":"2026-02-06","type":"press","title":"Lawyer sets new standard for abuse of AI; judge tosses case - Ars Technica","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report","independence":"independent"},{"url":"https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/frustrated-judge-tosses-case-with-fake-AI-citations-references-to-ray-bradburys-fahrenheit-451","publisher":"ABA Journal","date":"2026-02-09","type":"press","title":"Frustrated judge tosses case with fake AI citations, references to Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' - ABA Journal","archived_url":null}],"per_field_confidence":{"event.incident_class":"C","context.country":"C","impact.severity":"D","event.summary":"C","system.autonomy_level":"D","system.deployment_context":"D","event.trigger":"D","event.detection_method":"D","system.developer":"D","event.date_disclosed":"D","context.denominator_available":"D"},"field_citations":{"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"In an order on Thursday, District Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that the extraordinary sanctions were warranted after an attorney, Steven Feldman, kept responding to requests to correct his filings with documents containing fake citations."}],"context.country":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"In an order on Thursday, District Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that the extraordinary sanctions were warranted after an attorney, Steven Feldman, kept responding to requests to correct his filings with documents containing fake citations."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Frustrated by fake citations and flowery prose packed with “out-of-left-field” references to ancient libraries and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a New York federal judge took the rare step of terminating a case this week due to a lawyer’s repeated misuse of AI when drafting filings."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"In an order on Thursday, District Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that the extraordinary sanctions were warranted after an attorney, Steven Feldman, kept responding to requests to correct his filings with documents containing fake citations."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Frustrated by fake citations and flowery prose packed with “out-of-left-field” references to ancient libraries and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a New York federal judge took the rare step of terminating a case this week due to a lawyer’s repeated misuse of AI when drafting filings."},{"source_index":1,"quote":"According to Ars Technica, although the judge suspected that Feldman used AI to help write his filings, he testified that he wrote every word in them."},{"source_index":1,"quote":"He explained that he read the Bradbury book “many years ago” and wanted to include “personal things” in that filing."}]},"notes_on_gaps":"No occurrence date, disclosure date or detection date is stated; only article dates and the relative terms Thursday, this week and last week appear, so no dates were estimated. The AI tool, its developer and its version are not named. The sources describe a lawyer using AI in drafting, not an autonomous agent, so agent and failure-class fields are omitted. No control is stated to have held, failed or been missing, so the links list is empty. The responsible party is not stated. Severity minor is my judgement: the harm is contained to one case and attorney, and no third party is stated as affected beyond that. The attorney's denial of AI use comes from the ABA Journal citing Ars Technica, a secondhand report. No remediation is stated. [case created by the backfill: read by claude-haiku-5-5, backfill-2026-11-01.2, 2026-11-01; not yet reviewed] [2026-11-01: evidence level set: Preliminary (1 report: Ars Technica · subject to change)]"},"context":{"industry":null,"org_size_band":null,"country":"US","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":null,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null},"narrative":{"steps":[{"step":"reached","text":"He kept responding to requests to correct his filings with documents containing fake citations.","quote":"In an order on Thursday, District Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that the extraordinary sanctions were warranted after an attorney, Steven Feldman, kept responding to requests to correct his filings with documents containing fake citations.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"done","text":"The judge terminated the case as an extraordinary sanction over the repeated misuse of AI in filings.","quote":"Frustrated by fake citations and flowery prose packed with “out-of-left-field” references to ancient libraries and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a New York federal judge took the rare step of terminating a case this week due to a lawyer’s repeated misuse of AI when drafting filings.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"}],"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/randomly-quoting-ray-bradbury-did-not-save-lawyer-from-losing-case-over-ai-errors/","https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/frustrated-judge-tosses-case-with-fake-AI-citations-references-to-ray-bradburys-fahrenheit-451"]},"analysis":{"sections":{"timeline":[{"text":"Judge Failla wrote the order finding extraordinary sanctions warranted.","quote":"Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York wrote in an order last week that the “extraordinary” sanctions were warranted after an attorney, Steven Feldman, kept responding to requests to correct his filings with documents containing fake citations, Ars Technica reports.","source_index":1,"when":"last week"}]},"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/randomly-quoting-ray-bradbury-did-not-save-lawyer-from-losing-case-over-ai-errors/","https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/frustrated-judge-tosses-case-with-fake-AI-citations-references-to-ray-bradburys-fahrenheit-451"]}}