AI Risk Wire

Cases › made things up › LR-2026-0492

Attorney sanctioned for filing brief with AI-generated hallucinations

Preliminary Why: Publisher not yet named · subject to change

Status: action reported, no fix

Severity minor
Reported 27 Apr 2026

No source states: loss or records, developer and model, agent tool, could do, deployer, industry.

An attorney, Raja Rajan, used an AI chatbot to write a brief filed in federal court in a business dispute where he represented his brother. He asked a different bot to verify the citations. Opposing counsel noticed six false citations and notified the court. Rajan's review found five citations with errors and one case that did not exist. A federal judge sanctioned him $5,000, a second AI-related sanction after an earlier $2,500 penalty. Rajan said the error was his and that he took a shortcut.

What happened

1 · How it was caughtOpposing counsel noticed six false citations and notified the court.

What was done

The federal judge sanctioned the attorney $5,000.

Risks

Made-up output relied on
Primary36 incidents

Read from the sources; not yet reviewed by a person.

Controls

Not yet read for controls. Controls that mitigate the primary risk:

Application

Grounding and fact checks · Human approval for high-impact actions · Output filtering and redaction · People told they are dealing with AI

Evidence

No source states: what the AI was doing, what went wrong, what it reached or did, when it happened, when it was found, how many records were exposed, the direct loss, a count of the other parties affected, any court case, the cause, what set it off.

Show the full account: 4 items from the primary sources

What happened, in order

  1. Feb. 20 Brief with AI-generated false citations filed in federal court.

Not dated in the sources:

  • Earlier sanction of $2,500 for relying on AI to write two motions, with continuing legal education ordered.
  • Opposing counsel noticed six false citations and notified the court.
  • Judge sanctioned the attorney $5,000 for the AI hallucinations.
Show every field, with its source and grade

What happened

Earliest source we hold
2026-04-27
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
Who caught it
an outside party
C one secondary source states it
What went wrong
made things up
C one secondary source states it
primary risk
RK14
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Impact

Severity
minor
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Context

Country
United States
C one secondary source states it

Notes on gaps

The Third Circuit case and the Sullivan & Cromwell matter are other incidents and were excluded.

LR-2026-0492 · version 1 · published 2026-11-01 after automatic checks; not yet checked field by field by a person · JSON