Courts on AI / Fabricated or misquoted citations

Sherwood v. County of Botetourt, Virginia

United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia · Federal district courts · VA · 2026-05-21 · No. 7:25-cv-821 · memorandum opinion

Fabricated or misquoted citations

On 2026-05-20, in Sherwood v. County of Botetourt, Virginia, et al, the Western District of Virginia granted dismissal of most claims and warned that any future filing must be supported by real law. Counsel cited Peal v. Commonwealth even though the court found the authority did not exist.

Disposition: The motions to dismiss were granted, leave to amend was denied, and the court declined to accept pleadings built on hallucinated law.
Recorded conduct: The Sherwoods’ counsel filed pleadings containing nonexistent statutory language, fictitious cases such as Peal v. Commonwealth, false quotations, and misstatements of law. Counsel could not explain the citations when asked whether they came from an AI tool. — outcome: dismissal; actor: lawyer
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.

The Sherwoods’ sweeping claims appear to stem from incorrect interpretations of law and include citations to hallucinated law ostensibly obtained from generative AI tools. A fundamental misunderstanding about (1) the requirements for a misdemeanor warrant under Virginia Code § 19.2-72;and (2) the effect of a nolo contendere plea in Virginia court underlies all twenty counts. CLERKS OFFICE US DISTRICT COURT AT ROANOKE, VA FILED LAURA A. AUSTIN, CLERK BY: /s/ E. Jones DEPUTY CLERK May 21, 2026 Ten motions are pending before the court, including: defendants’ motions to quash service of the original complaint, ECF Nos. 34, 36, 38, 41, 44; defendants’ motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim, ECF Nos. 71, 76, 79, 82, 84; and plaintiffs’ motion to amend their amended complaint, ECF No. 93. The court has carefully considered the various motions of the parties, the parties’ briefing on those motions, and the parties’ oral arguments presented at the February 2, 2026, hearing on the pending motions.

Court document: damiencharlotin.com
Read: 2026-09-07 · court document read from a public copy; the court's own copy was not found online when checked (see notes)provisional
Found via: charlotin-hallucinations-db
Notes: Read from the copy held by Damien Charlotin's AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC BY 4.0) of the court-authored document Re-coded from the document 2026-09-08 (independent second read). Official copy not obtained 2026-09-08: not in the court's GovInfo feed for this docket (many district courts publish only some orders) (checked govinfo.gov (USCOURTS), CourtListener RECAP search).

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