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Incident Tracker / United States (state)

Del Biaggio v. Bansen, No. A174647 (Cal. Ct. App., 1st Dist., Div. 4)

·California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four·US-STATEFine

In a published opinion in an attorney-fee appeal, the California Court of Appeal, First District, fined attorney Floyd USD 1,500 for misstatements and false quotations attributed to the Gorman and PLCM decisions. The case is catalogued in the Charlotin AI hallucination database; whether the court attributed the false quotations to generative AI should be confirmed from the opinion.

Court
California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four
Date
2026-07-10
Who used the AI
Lawyer
AI tool
Not identified in the record
Conduct
In a published opinion in an attorney-fee appeal, the court sanctioned attorney Floyd for misstatements and false quotations attributed to Gorman and PLCM. The entry derives from the Charlotin database coding; the opinion should be checked for whether AI use was found or inferred.
Outcome
Fine
Penalty
US$1,500
Regulatory outcome
No separate regulatory disposition recorded
Status
Verified against listed sources
Last checked
2026-09-03

What was fabricated or misused

  • PLCM Group, Inc. v. Drexler (2000) 22 Cal.4th 1084 — fictitious quote: ‘We discern no reason why fees for paralegal services should not be recoverable under section 1717...’
  • PLCM Group, Inc. v. Drexler (2000) 22 Cal.4th 1084 — fictitious quote: ‘Services performed by paralegals . . . are properly considered as a component of attorney fees awards.’
  • PLCM Group, Inc. v. Drexler (2000) 22 Cal.4th 1084 — fictitious quote: ‘We discern no basis for treating contractual attorney fee clauses differently’ from statutory ones
  • Gorman v. Tassajara Development Corp. (2009) 178 Cal.App.4th 44 — fictitious quote: ‘There is no doubt that fees for work performed by paralegals . . . are recoverable as part of a prevailing party’s attorney fee award.’
  • Guinn v. Dotco, Inc., 27 Cal.App.4th 262 — incorrect case name and citation; the apparent case was Guinn v. Dotson (1994) 23 Cal.App.4th 262, a statutory fee case

What the court said

“although we reject the Bansens’ contention that the appeal is frivolous, we will order Del Biaggio’s counsel, Carlton Floyd, to pay sanctions to the court for filing an opening brief with misstatements of the case law, including fictional quotations.”
California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four, p. 1
“No such language appears in that case—or any other of which we are aware—nor did the case address the subject of paralegal fees.”
California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four, p. 16
“We glean from Floyd’s declaration that he used generative AI to make additions to the opening brief during trial recesses in another case without ever planning to review personally—or even to have any other lawyer review—the case law he added.”
California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four, p. 18
“Misrepresentations of the case law, however they come about, waste the time of both opposing counsel and the court, imposing on them the burden of correcting them.”
California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four, p. 19

Timeline

  1. Court affirmed the lodestar reduction but reversed categorical denial of paralegal fees.
  2. Court vacated the trial court sanctions order tied to reconsideration.
  3. Court identified fictitious PLCM and Gorman quotations in the opening brief.
  4. Court ordered Carlton Floyd to pay USD 1,500 to the Court of Appeal clerk.
  5. Court ordered the clerk to forward the opinion to the State Bar after remittitur.

Why this case matters

Del Biaggio is a California appellate example about invented quotations from real fee cases, not a list of wholly nonexistent authorities. That places it near Noland v Land of the Free, but the sanction was smaller because the court accepted there was no intent to mislead and the appeal was not frivolous. The opinion still confirms that a lawyer's AI protocol is deficient if it sends AI-added legal propositions to a paralegal for citation checking without a lawyer reading the cases. It also separated the merits from the misconduct: Del Biaggio won a partial reversal while counsel was fined.

Practice note

If generative AI supplies a quotation from a reported case, the lawyer who signs the brief should open that case and compare the quoted words before filing. A paralegal cite check cannot replace legal review of the authority's meaning. If a false quotation is discovered, correct it promptly rather than waiting until the eve of argument.

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, “Del Biaggio v. Bansen, No. A174647 (Cal. Ct. App., 1st Dist., Div. 4)”, safelegalai.com/tracker/del-biaggio-v-bansen (accessed 2026-10-07). Data: CC BY 4.0.

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