Attorney EXPOSED Making Up Cases to Win in Court

[00:00:02]An attorney is standing before a judge admitting he used AI to research his case. What he's about to confess will shock the courtroom. This is Travis County Court at law in Texas. Plaintiff Gonzalo Pacheco is suing the Victoria Glenn Homeowners Association and its former president, Robert Cruz, over HOA fee disputes. He's represented by attorney Ed Lee. The defense attorneys, Andrew Willard and Jake Dimma, filed a motion for summary judgement, arguing Pacheco's claims are timebarred under the statute of limitations.

[00:00:39]Lee filed a response citing multiple court cases to counter their argument.

[00:00:44]But Willard and Dimma discovered something disturbing about those citations. They sent Lee a letter demanding he verify his sources. He never responded. Instead, he showed up to court and doubled down. Now, Judge Todd Wong has to decide what happens when an attorney brings fake case law into his courtroom.

[00:01:05]>> So, what I've got on my docket here is a motion for reconsideration of a defendant's motion for summary judgement from a while back and then motion for sanctions uh due to some case law citation and other things that I guess the defendant wants to talk about. So, there was a motion to also to object to a visiting judge, but y'all already agreed to one before. So, you've kind of waved that. Doesn't really matter because I'm hearing the case right now.

[00:01:32]So, that's really not on my docket. All right. So, let's go with the defendants motion for reconsideration. Uh, either Mr. Willard or Mr. Dimma, you may proceed.

[00:01:42]>> Yes, your honor. Uh, Andrew Willard. For the defendants, uh, as I stated earlier, I represent both defendants, the Victoria Glenn HOA and his former president, Robert Cruz. Um, the plaintiff, Mr. Pico is a resident of the HOA. Uh he has filed a lawsuit against my clients asserting breach of contract uh declar declaratory judgment and a breach of fiduciary duty. Uh the breach of duty is only against Mr. Cruz.

[00:02:12]Essentially, Mr. Chico is arguing that he's being in incorrectly assessed his uh HOA fees by the HOA and this is resulting in him being overcharged compared to some of the other residents.

[00:02:26]Uh the the motion for sanctions is being filed today because we had previously filed a motion for summary judgement seeking to dismiss all of Mr. Chico's claims as a matter of law as uh because they are timebarred. Uh on November 25th of last year, we argued this motion in front of Judge Bergus. Uh at that hearing, council for the plaintiff uh relied on and cited to multiple cases that either don't exist at all or to holdings and propositions of law that aren't actually in the cases that were cited. Uh, I'll get into this in a little bit more detail, but it was very clear at the hearing that Judge Bergus took council's citations as if they were in fact true and then ultimately denied our motion for summary judgement. Uh, we we're here today asking for relief from the court. Uh, specifically, uh, if the court's so inclined, we'd ask that the, uh, order denying defendants summary judgement be vacated. the plaintiff's pleadings uh filed in response to the motion for summary judgement be struck due to the false and inaccurate case law. We'd ask that either our summary judgement be granted on the merits in its entirety uh or that the plaintiff's claims in this case be dismissed as an appropriate sanction. And finally, if if we're if the court's not going to permit us to argue our motion for reconsideration today, then we'd ask that uh we be permitted to reset the summary judgement for rehearing uh at a later date. I'd planned on getting into a really descriptive explanation of what happened. However, plaintiff has filed a response to our motion for sanctions, I believe, on Tuesday or perhaps it was yesterday. In that response, just to summarize, council basically uh admitted his conduct, fell on his sword, uh and and has addressed the issues. Um you know, agreeing that there were false and fictitious citations. Uh so I'm not I don't want to belabor that point, but I would like to walk the court through what happened just to explain the nature of the prejudice to my clients. Uh as as I said earlier, we filed a motion for summary judgement based on the applicable statute of limitations saying that this was these claims were timebarred. Uh plaintiff then filed a response to our motion that I'm going to call the original response. Uh, and your honor, I don't know if you have a copy of our motion for sanctions pulled up, but I'll I'll show you exhibit uh A. Um, basically in plaintiff's original response to our summary judgement, he cited to a single case for multiple propositions of law, about six different propositions of law supporting his arguments. Uh, and he even pulled a direct quote from that case. Uh, on my screen, that case is Enray.

[00:05:18]It's a one-page opinion, uh, but it does not contain a single one of the propositions of law the plaintiff relied on, giving plaintiff counsel the benefit of the doubt. Um, we searched for another case called Enray Capmire. Uh, we were able to locate it. There is a Supreme Court case with that name. the recorder and other identifying information is not what claim what was cited in the motion or in the response.

[00:05:48]Um, and this other Enray Catmy case uh only deals with uh it's it's a joiner issue and does again does not contain any of the legal authority. So, a week prior to the summary judgement hearing, we sent council a letter, uh, which is exhibit C, which I'm showing you, uh, just explaining that, you know, we were unable to find it. We think that, you know, the citations are incorrect, and we asked that he either send us a copy of the case, send us the correct citation, uh, or or or resolve the issue. Uh, we never heard back. All we got was a a second u response to our summary judgment completely removing all citations to Catmy and then citing a host of new cases. Um and in this second response again there were multiple issues of fictitious citations you know what we believe are AI hallucinogen cases. Um and there was at least three cases that we identified um that either a direct quote was pulled from that does not exist. Uh the recorder number took us to a case that is not the case that was cited. Uh and then there was another quote that did not exist.

[00:07:05]However, the most in our opinion the most concerning case was a case called MBM Financial Court via the Woodlands which plaintiff cited to as a Texas Supreme Court case. Uh plaintiff at the hearing in front of Judge Bergus stated affirmatively to to the judge that this case recognized an ongoing economic breach as giving rise to a recurring cause of action. essentially arguing that every time Mr. Pachico was uh assessed, it either told or reset the statute of limitations. Um this case does not mention that council made the affirmative repres representation at the hearing that this case was Texas Supreme Court case law. It was controlling law.

[00:07:53]The reason that this case is so important that you know due to its miscitation um and in fact that case really only stands for the proposition that attorney's fees can be awarded in addition to nominal damages or something along those lines. So not that doesn't even talk about this recurring violation rule which which again is not an actual Texas doctrine. Um but at that hearing once this case was cited I brought it up to Judge Burgess and said you know your honor I I should have addressed this probably at the beginning of the hearing but we believe this case uh the citations from this case are false or there's hallucinogens or any of the you know the hallmarks of generative AI being used. I don't think he the judge understood the allegation that I was making because his next question to me was essentially well do you have a Supreme Court case that rebutts that proposition of law? Uh and then shortly after that he he denied our motion um after we had a discussion about whether the continuing violation doctrine existed or not. Um it I've never had to file a motion like this before and I don't you know I'm not I don't enjoy enjoy doing it now.

[00:09:01]However, just the fact that the original response was filed with fake cases. We informed council that the cases were fake. a second response was filed with fake cases. Uh we did not inform him because it was right before the hearing.

[00:09:15]But then the fact that you know it was doubled down on at the hearing in front of B Judge Bergus and clearly was a deciding factor in our summary judgement being denied. Uh we wanted to bring this to the court's attention and show that our client has been prejudiced because the issues before the court on the summary judgement are very clear. It's just statute of limitations and there's very clear case law that uh if if we're allowed, Mr. Demo will explain explain to you, judge. Um and so essentially we're here. We cited a whole host of cases in our motion for sanctions addressing, you know, what the hallmarks of AI generated case law look like and then also uh what courts in the Northern District of Texas, Eastern District, uh the Eastern District and then some other circuit courts have decided are appropriate sanctions. And so today, we're asking that the court again um vacate the order denying the motion for summary judgement. strike plaintiff's pleadings and and grant our summary judgement or dismiss this case as an appropriate sanction. Uh and then alternatively, if the court's inclined to have a reharing, permit us to to rehear or permit us to argue our arguments uh set forth in our motion for summary judgement. Um and and that concludes my argument, your honor.

[00:10:38]>> Thank you, council. Um are you asking for attorney fees?

[00:10:45]Apologies. I muted myself. Your honor, we if we are we are we've asked for attorney fees just to cover the cost of the original hearing uh and today's hearing on the motion for sanctions. We >> um >> Did you submit an affidavit for that?

[00:11:00]>> We Yes. If the court's so inclined, we'll submit an affidavit. However, the attorney >> So, you have not yet?

[00:11:05]>> We have not as we needed to we needed to uh calculate our fees from today. Um, and granted, I understand we have two attorneys here, so I'm not going to uh I'll be conscious of what I think is appropriate, but your honor, at the end of the day, my client and myself, you know, the attorney's fees are not what we're after. We're here to get justice for the defendants and and based on these clear uh time bar causes of action, we're we're essentially asking just for judgment in our favor. and we're willing to, you know, wave attorneys fees if we can just get this case resolved through uh summary judgement or through a dismissal as a an appropriate sanction.

[00:11:47]>> All right. Thank you very much. All right, Mr. Lee, what do we have here?

[00:11:51]>> Uh, judge, can I ask for the screen sharing to be cleared so that uh we can focus on the conversation, please? Thank you. Um, so, judge, uh, I I want to address it directly. You know, I put it in my my response. Um the earlier earlier filings did contain citations that I didn't verify properly. Um it shouldn't have happened and I take responsibility for that. Uh the issue is twofold however. One is the citations may have been wrong but the principle of law is correct. Uh and that's addressed in the response to the MSJ on the merits. And the other issue is really whe whether this rises to the level of sanctions. Um the legal standard under rule 13 and then under chapter 10 uh is that the pleading is both groundless and brought in bad faith for the purpose of harassment. Um also there's a presumption of good faith and sanction to require conscious wrongdoing not just mistake or negligence. And you know I think the facts as described uh don't show um conscious wrongdoing. I do believe that they show mistake or negligence. Um, chapter 10. Similarly, >> let me interrupt you for just a second.

[00:13:08]Did did you use AI to come up with your response?

[00:13:12]>> I I did. I used several tools uh in order to uh do the research. Um the drafting that I do, I draft by hand myself. Um but I do use available technology in order to uh you know to to do my work. And so you understand the obligation of council if you're going to use or use or utilize AI is to actually check the citations and the quotations that the AI provides.

[00:13:39]>> Totally understand that, Judge.

[00:13:40]>> He just admitted it on the record. He used AI to generate legal research and never verified a single citation was real. Here's why this matters.

[00:13:51]In 2023, federal courts started sanctioning attorneys who submit AI generated fake cases. The landmark case was in New York. A lawyer cited six non-existent cases from Chat GPT. He was fined $5,000 and publicly humiliated. Since then, judges have made it clear you are responsible for every word AI generates.

[00:14:15]There's no I didn't know defense. If you put it in front of a judge, you own it.

[00:14:21]And Judge Wong just asked Lee a question that's about to end him. Watch what happens when he brings up federal court.

[00:14:28]>> If you were in federal court, what do you think would happen to you, >> judge? You know, I I can't quite say I don't practice in federal court. I'm I'm sure it wouldn't I I'm sure it would be as uncomfortable and difficult as it is right here today. It's a situation I never wanted to be in. But, you know, the the fact is um you know, I'm owning it and I do believe that this case should be heard on the merits. I do believe that uh the there is a good faith argument for everything uh in terms of the the merits of the case. Um I've even offered and we offered to to have a redo of the uh summary judgement. Um, I offered to do a, you know, an agreed motion to vacate, uh, a reset. Um, and they said no. They said they wanted to push the sanctions.

[00:15:27]I understand that, but, you know, if if Mr. Willard is talking about justice for his client. Um, I I think that there's more at stake here than just his client.

[00:15:38]There's my client and there's the entire community that are similarly situated.

[00:15:42]Uh, you know, these are things that the defendants have an opportunity to correct and they just choose not to. Um, you know, to to be able to to dismiss this without consideration of the merits based on my mistake. You know, the death sentence uh sanctions are are rare. uh as you know um again you know the the facts show and and I'll you know I'm representing to the court today uh I did make a reasonable inquiry I did take corrective action um at the time of the filing I I didn't independently verify that because it was such a truism that you know you can't have a summary judgment on you know >> don't start just Don't start justifying using AI and and hold on. Don't start do do not interrupt me, council.

[00:16:41]>> Do not attempt to come to me today and try to justify putting false information, false case law before the court, whether it's before me or Judge Burgess or anyone else. Don't do that.

[00:16:57]I just need to know >> understood >> the basis for even having this go on further because the sanction issue is real.

[00:17:07]>> Okay. I'm I'm definitely considering sanctions. I don't think it's appropriate that you come now today now saying, "Well, yeah, that was incorrect. I didn't do it right."

[00:17:19]That that is a fundamental issue for lawyers. I mean the public's trust in the justice system is that the lawyers will dutifully provide case information court precedent and cite it correctly that that >> yes >> you understand that and so it's very difficult for me to stand here today and listen to this and not think that the sanction should be very severe to you.

[00:17:48]>> I understand you may continue. Okay.

[00:17:52]Thank you, judge. Um, I'm not going to minimize it that I started out the conversation by saying I'm not going to minimize it, and I'm sorry that it came across that way. Um, that was not my intent. Uh, I I look at this as what's proportional.

[00:18:11]Um, what is what is needed to write the wrong. Um I do believe that uh a rehering on the summary judgement is appropriate. Uh and I do believe that um you know to the extent that that I've attempted to cooperate with making that happen should so should show some good faith effort on my part to remedy the wrong. The other thing that I will say in closing is um I've completely revamped uh my research uh uh tools and and the ability to get accurate and and timely uh case law. Um you know, just to to let you know, it it's uh the Lexus Nexus platform. Um and you know, that I I think uh is a benefit to me. This is not something that's going to happen again. I will tell you, um, I I never want to disappoint you or any other judge, and I never want to put opposing counsel in a position where they've had to do an uncomfortable situation, which is, you know, call me out and and bring me to task. Um, so, judge, I'm asking, uh, and I'm arguing that it wasn't intentional. Uh, it was, um, terrible.

[00:19:31]Uh, but I don't believe it rises to the level of a death sentence sanction.

[00:19:36]>> All right. Thank you. Anything else, Mr. Willard or Mr. Adema?

[00:19:41]>> Yes, your honor. I I will say that, you know, the the purpose of today's hearing was not to uh hang Mr. Lee in the court of law. It was just the the only reason that we brought this was to ensure one that justice was done for our client and two to make the court aware should this case continue into the future. Uh just so we did not get down the road and have these issues arise a second or third time and have the court question us as to why we never made uh made it known at the at the outset or when the first time happened. But that that that's it, your honor. Um, that's it for me.

[00:20:21]>> All right. Thank you. I appreciate the courtesies. All right. Um, here's what I'm going to do. Well, I'm I'm looking at even the original motion for summary judgement and I haven't had a chance to have you all do a full argument on if you've already had that heard by Justice Burgess. I'm going to do this one. I'm going to vacate the prior summary judgement rejection by the court.

[00:20:46]Uh, I'm not striking pleadings.

[00:20:50]Uh, I'm going to order all attorneys fees incurred by the defendants um to have their hearing on the motion for summary judgement. Not not the preparation of it. Not the first one anyway. Um, they're not going to need to uh they're not going to need to be reimbursed for that. Right. But I do need the attorney's fees from the um incurred from the uh hearing date itself.

[00:21:22]Uh because at before that hearing, y'all gave him an opportunity to clean it up.

[00:21:26]So I'm not I'm not going to incur that.

[00:21:29]I'm not going to charge those fees or assess those fees. But the fees incurred for the hearing itself and the subsequent hearing or prep for the hearing today, the instrument to file um and today's hearing, those fees need to be put into an affidavit. I'm going to award those fees assuming they're reasonable and necessary.

[00:21:50]Um I'm going to um have y'all reset have another rehearing on the motion for summary judgement. So we're going to reset it. Um, I'm striking the response to the summary judgement that was filed by the plaintiff and he's going to have to actually refile or resubmit an answer or a response to the summary judgement motion.

[00:22:17]>> Yes, sir.

[00:22:19]>> Just for clarification, there have been three responses filed uh by the plaintiff. Are you are you intending to strike all three?

[00:22:26]>> Those are all strict strike. I I want an actual clean response to the motion for summary judgement.

[00:22:34]>> Judge, I' I'd be happy to provide that.

[00:22:36]Thank you.

[00:22:37]>> All right. I'm going to reprimand council, Mr. Lee, for um utilizing AI and not um actually researching any citations that were submitted to the court. Um, for the response to the summary judgement motion, every single case you site, sir, you shall include either a link to it electronically or the physical copy to both the opposing council and to the court. If you cite any case, they have to be provided >> understood >> for this reply.

[00:23:17]>> And I want it highlighted. Hold on. And if you're going to do any quotations, they need to be in your response, they've got to be highlighted in the actual text of the case law that you are using.

[00:23:29]>> Yes, judge. Uh just to be clear, is it okay if I use the uh the hyperlink uh to the site to the actual case within uh Lexus Nexus? Uh >> so so long as Mr. Willard and Mr. Dea can access it, they may not use they may not use Lexus. They may use Weslaw. I don't know. Understood. I'll coordinate ahead of time, judge.

[00:23:51]>> Um, and in le of that you can give them hard copies of every case.

[00:23:57]>> Uh, I think it's a pretty narrow issue uh whether statute of limitations under the uh under uh let's see looks like Dun Hang Association versus Sun 9028 693 Southwest 3rd 811 uh talking about when that that time trigger starts.

[00:24:16]>> So um I'm not going to get into the details of it. It just looks like that's kind of a big big issue as far as we're just looking at limitations. So, if if there's some contrary case law to that, great. Um, j it up. Um, but don't ever do this again.

[00:24:35]>> Yeah, judge.

[00:24:38]Never happen again. Um, one uh thing that I do want to preview for you is uh you know they're they're saying it's an orange. I'm saying it's an apple.

[00:24:50]They're claiming >> Please stop it. Please stop. Just respond. I I don't need to hear that.

[00:24:55]Now you you can you can make that argument in your in your response to the summary judgement motion. I don't need to hear it today. Uh, I'm only going to give y'all a limited amount of time uh to get this done because this has been rolling around for months and I I I don't like my cases to sit and even though this was in court too and I'm hearing it today, it's not sitting. So, um you've got uh why don't you work with um Miss Coloulton? Uh she'll be able to have access to both uh well to our court schedule and see if we can get you in.

[00:25:33]Um, I'd like this done. Uh, we're just we're about to start a two-eek trial.

[00:25:38]Um, I'd like to get this done no later.

[00:25:43]Haven't heard no later than um let's see.

[00:25:48]>> All right, let's do nine. Let's do nine o'clock on May uh 28th. Um, how long did y'all set the last motion for summary judgement? 30 minutes, >> I believe. So, your honor.

[00:25:59]>> All right. Uh, we'll do 30 minutes again. This ruling demonstrates how courts are adapting to AI generated legal work. Judge Wong didn't impose the harshest sanctions available, but he required something more immediate.

[00:26:14]Accountability through verification by mandating that Lee provide physical proof of every citation with highlighted quotations. The court created a manual safeguard against future AI errors. The attorney fee award sent a clear message that AI mistakes waste court time and opposing council's resources, both of which have real costs. The legal profession is wrestling with AI technology in real time. Courts are establishing that attorneys cannot outsource their professional judgment to algorithms. The duty to verify remains with the lawyer, not the machine. When that duty is breached, the consequences extend beyond one attorney. They undermine public trust in the accuracy of legal proceedings and the integrity of the judicial system itself. Let us know if there's a case or courtroom interaction you'd like us to explore in the comments below. Thank you for watching and don't forget to like and subscribe.