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Courts on AI / Fabricated or misquoted citations

Estate of Claxton

Arizona Court of Appeals · State appellate courts · AZ · · No. 1 CA-CV 25-0685 PB · opinion

Fabricated or misquoted citationscourt does not name AI

On 2026-05-18, in Estate of Claxton, Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed and declined to find waiver despite several fictitious or inaccurate citations in the appellant's brief. A self-represented appellant filed a brief using several nonexistent or hallucinated authorities. The document links the problem to GAI.

Disposition
The probate order was affirmed after the court disregarded unsupported arguments and identified fictitious or inaccurate authorities.
Recorded conduct
The self-represented appellant’s brief relied on several fictitious or inaccurate authorities. The court noted the defects but imposed no sanction in this document. — outcome: noted, no consequence; actor: litigant in person
Canonical record
Incident tracker entry — verified outcome, regulator disposition and related rules

What the court wrote

Verbatim from the court's document (public domain). Ellipses mark omitted text; nothing is paraphrased.

Many of Claxton's factual assertions lack specific record cites, he includes several fictitious or inaccurate case citations, and he relies on numerouslawfirmarticleswithoutexplainingtheirrelevance or persuasive value. Though we could conclude that he has waived his arguments, in our discretion we decline to do so. See Delmastro & Eells v. Taco Bell Corp., 228 Ariz. 134, 137, ¶ 7 n.2 (App. 2011) (acknowledging ARCAP 13 waiver is discretionary). ¶9 Turning to the merits of Claxton's appeal, Brooks filed the closing statement in December 2022. In July 2025, well beyond the six-month limitations period for asserting claims against a personal representative for breach of fiduciary duty, see A.R.S. § 14-3935, Claxton moved to reopen the probate. Thus, the superior court properly concluded that Claxton's breach of fiduciary duty claim against Brooks as personal representative is barred. To the extent Claxton claims that Brooks breached a separate duty as Account trustee, he has waived that claim because he did not raise it in the superior court. See BMO Harris Bank N.A. v. Espiau, 251 Ariz. 588, 594, ¶ 25 (App. 2021).

Authorities cited in the passage: See Delmastro & Eells v. Taco Bell Corp., 228 Ariz · See BMO Harris Bank N.A. v. Espiau, 251 Ariz

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