Horst Legal Counsel | March 2026

If you have been following California’s growing body of appellate authority on AI-generated legal citations, you have watched the courts build a wall, one published opinion at a time.

• First came the warnings to attorneys.

• Then came the sanctions.

• Then, in Torres Campos v. Munoz, the consequences reached the bench itself when fabricated case law made it into a signed court order.

Now the First District Court of Appeal has laid another brick. In Sheerer v. Panas (2026) ___ Cal.App.5th ___ (A171804), the court extended the prohibition against unverified AI-generated citations to self-represented litigants, and it made clear that the available penalties go well beyond striking a deficient brief.

The message is no longer limited to the bar. It applies to everyone who files a document in a California court.

What happened

The underlying dispute was a family law matter involving child support. Anna Sheerer appealed a trial court order that failed to account for her ex-husband Thomas Panas’s bonus and restricted stock unit compensation when calculating support. The Department of Child Support Services agreed with Sheerer that the trial court had erred. On the merits, the Court of Appeal reversed. That part of the opinion is unpublished.

What the court chose to publish was something else entirely.

In his respondent’s brief, Panas:

• Cited at least two cases that do not exist.

• Fabricated quotations that appear nowhere in the real cases he did cite.

• Referenced hearings in the proceedings below that the appellate court could not locate in the record.

When Sheerer moved to strike the brief, Panas filed a declaration explaining that his “error” resulted from using a generative AI tool without verifying the output. The court was not persuaded by his framing.

The court’s reasoning

The First District began where you would expect: with the principle that self-represented litigants are held to the same standards as attorneys. Citing Kobayashi v. Superior Court and Keitel v. Heubel, the court rejected the notion that pro se status provides any shelter from the obligations that attach to every filing.

As our Supreme Court put it more than three decades ago, a doctrine permitting exceptional treatment for self-represented parties “would lead to a quagmire in the trial courts, and would be unfair to the other parties to litigation.”

The court then situated Panas’s conduct within the line of authority developing since generative AI tools became widely available:

1. Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P.: The Second District decision warning attorneys about unverified AI citations.

2. People v. Alvarez: Holding that honesty in court filings is paramount.

The opinion includes a passage that captures the court’s concern precisely: The rule of law depends on courts impartially applying law to facts. That foundation is threatened when litigants falsify the truth, “especially when done by using technological innovations that can spin persuasive webs of untruths and invent legal principles or authorities.”

Consequences and Penalties

Having disregarded Panas’s brief in its entirety, the court turned to consequences. It noted that under California Rules of Court, rule 8.276(a)(4), the court may impose monetary sanctions on its own motion for unreasonable violations. While the court declined to impose sanctions here due to the interests of the children involved, it published the warning as a deterrent.

Why this matters beyond family court

Sheerer v. Panas is a narrow case on its facts, but the published portion carries broad implications. Three things stand out:

• Universal Obligations: The court closed the gap. Sheerer makes explicit that the same obligations apply to every litigant, represented or not.

• Escalating Consequences: The court has put all parties on notice that monetary sanctions are available for AI-related citation failures. Future litigants should not expect the same restraint shown to Panas.

• No “Ignorance” Defense: The court’s response to Panas’s claim that he didn’t “knowingly” submit false info was direct: his lack of knowledge resulted from a failure to verify. The duty is to confirm every citation exists and says what you claim it says.

What businesses and individuals should take away

If your company uses AI tools in any part of a legal workflow—whether for research, drafting, or document review—Sheerer v. Panas adds to the growing authority that verification is not optional.

Key Takeaway: The obligation runs to the person whose name is on the filing, regardless of whether that person is an attorney, a corporate representative, or a self-represented individual.

• For Litigants: If you suspect an opposing party is submitting AI-generated work product without verification, you now have clear authority to seek relief.

• For Self-Represented Parties: Understand that the tools you use do not change the standard you are held to. The consequences are getting sharper.

Bottom Line

Sheerer v. Panas confirms what the California appellate courts have been building toward for the past two years: The duty to verify every citation in every court filing is universal. Horst Legal Counsel tracks AI-related litigation developments as part of its commitment to responsible AI integration in legal practice. For questions about how these decisions affect your business or your case, contact Jason Horst at jason@horstcounsel.com.

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Horst Legal Counsel | March 2026

Reviewing a judicial order that analyzed parties’ respective rights under AI-hallucinated case law cited and “interpreted” extensively by the parties, the Court of Appeal in Torres Campos v. Munoz felt compelled to publish its opinion in order to send a clear message to all officers of the court, whether at bar or on the bench:

“In a system of precedents that is designed to achieve consistency, predictability, and adherence to the rule of law, the judiciary cannot function properly unless judges and lawyers confirm the authenticity of cited authorities and review them to evaluate their holdings and reasoning. When the participants fail to perform this basic function, it compromises these institutional values and diminishes faith in the judicial process.”

In Torres Campos, the court confronted a family court order that relied on two entirely fictitious cases. The appellate panel agreed the trial court abused its discretion by basing its ruling on nonexistent authority. The Court nonetheless upheld the order, finding that appellant, whose own lawyer had drafted and submitted the very order that included the fake citations, had forfeited his right to challenge the order.

The case represents perhaps the most egregious single instance of AI hallucinations infecting the judicial process. A woman with custody of the dog she had shared with her ex-domestic partner told the family court that Marriage of Twigg and Marriage of Teegarden controlled her ex’s claim for custody over the dog. After a hearing, her ex’s lawyer submitted a proposed order to the court citing Marriage of Twigg and Marriage of Teegarden. The family court then adopted that proposed order, finding that, under Marriage of Twigg and Marriage of Teegarden, the ex receiving visitation rights was not in the best interests of the parties.

The problem? Both Marriage of Twigg and Marriage of Teegarden were AI-hallucinated cases.

How the Fake Citations Got Into the Record

The underlying dispute was a pet custody fight in San Diego family court. Joan Pablo Torres Campos sought shared custody and visitation of a dog named Kyra after his domestic partnership with Leslie Ann Munoz was dissolved. Munoz was represented pro bono by her cousin, Roxanne Chung Bonar, who cited the two fictitious cases in a letter opposing Torres’s motion, in Munoz’s declaration, and in filings in the Court of Appeal. Neither Twigg nor Teegarden, as cited, exists. The official citation Bonar provided for Twigg actually corresponds to an unrelated criminal case, and her citation for Teegarden misidentified the year, volume, and subject matter of a real but irrelevant spousal support decision.

After a hearing, the court directed Torres’s counsel to prepare a formal order. Torres’s counsel drafted that proposed order—and included the fictitious citations in the court’s reasoning. The commissioner signed it.

Forfeiture: You Can’t Challenge an Error You Created

On appeal, the Fourth District agreed that relying on fabricated case law constitutes an abuse of discretion, calling it “fundamentally incompatible with an informed exercise of discretion controlled by genuine principles of law.” But the court held Torres forfeited the claim under the doctrine that bars a party from challenging an error on appeal when that party caused or failed to correct the error below.

Torres’s own counsel had drafted the proposed order containing the hallucinated citations. She submitted it without verifying the authorities and without flagging the problem. The court found both affirmative conduct, drafting the order, and inaction, failing to object, supported forfeiture. The panel declined to exercise its discretion to overlook the forfeiture, reasoning that doing so would effectively excuse counsel’s own breach of her duty to the court.

Sanctions and a State Bar Referral

Bonar’s conduct drew direct consequences. When the issue was first raised on appeal, she defended the fictitious cases as legitimate, calling Torres’s challenge “baseless” and “unfounded.” She doubled down by providing additional fabricated parallel reporter citations and a fictitious date of decision for Twigg. She later acknowledged that the original citations came from a Reddit article shared at a family dinner and admitted she lacked a paid legal research subscription. At oral argument, she conceded the additional fictitious citation details may have come from AI tools.

The court imposed $5,000 in sanctions—significantly higher than the $1,500 and $1,750 imposed in the earlier Alvarez and Schlichter decisions, citing two aggravating factors: Bonar persisted in defending the fake authority even after being alerted to it, and she never fully explained where the additional fabricated citation information came from. The court also referred Bonar’s conduct to the State Bar.

Bottom Line

Torres Campos v. Munoz is the first published California appellate decision to directly address a trial court’s reliance on AI-hallucinated case citations in its own order. That distinction matters. Prior decisions like Alvarez, Schlichter, and Noland sanctioned attorneys for submitting fake citations. Torres Campos confronts what happens when fabricated law passes through every checkpoint, opposing counsel, drafting counsel, and the bench, and becomes the stated basis for a judicial order.

The court chose to publish its opinion for a reason. Its message was directed not only at the lawyers who failed here, but at the system itself. When a court order cites nonexistent authority as the legal basis for its ruling, the institutional values the court identified in its opening, consistency, predictability, and adherence to the rule of law, are not just compromised. They are absent. The court recommended that the Judicial Council consider adopting guidelines or rules for verification of citations, particularly in orders drafted by the parties and submitted to the court for signature.

That recommendation reflects the reality that the current safeguards failed at every level. Bonar cited fake cases. Torres’s counsel incorporated them into a proposed order without checking. The commissioner signed it. No one in the process did the basic work of confirming that the cited authorities were real. As AI tools become more embedded in legal research and drafting, every participant in the system, lawyers and judges alike, bears responsibility for ensuring that the law being applied actually exists.

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