Incident Tracker / United States (state)
Brankle v. Schmell
·Court of Appeals of Indiana·US-STATECosts orderprovisional
The Court of Appeals of Indiana affirms the denial of David Brankle’s motion to compel and a $1,546 expenses award. The memorandum quotes the trial court’s finding that Brankle cited nonexistent rules and fictitious cases suggesting ChatGPT use, and holds hallucinated authorities cannot substantially justify the motion.
- Court
- Court of Appeals of Indiana
- Date
- 2026-08-14
- Who used the AI
- Litigant in person
- AI tool
- ChatGPT or other form of artificial intelligence
- Conduct
- Self-represented litigant cited nonexistent Commercial Court Rules and fictitious cases in a motion to compel and related filings.
- Outcome
- Costs order
- Penalty
- US$1,546
- Regulatory outcome
- No separate regulatory disposition recorded
- Status
- Provisional — written by the court-decisions pipeline, awaiting the editor
- Last checked
- 2026-09-07
Primary sources for this incident
Related regulation records for this incident
No related regulation record has been linked to this incident yet.
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Cite this record
SafeLegalAI Global Legal AI Incident Tracker, “Brankle v. Schmell”, safelegalai.com/tracker/brankle-v-schmell (accessed 2026-09-08). Data: CC BY 4.0.