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Incident Tracker / United States (state)

Dineen/Shibata v. Kotchka, No. 1 CA-CV 25-0606 PB (Ariz. Ct. App.)

·Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One·US-STATESanctions

The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed a probate ruling and sanctioned self-represented appellant Jeffrey Kotchka, whose opening brief cited hallucinated and misrepresented authorities produced by generative AI. Holding that self-represented litigants must abide by the same rules, the court awarded appellee Kim Dineen the attorneys' fees and costs caused by the fake citations under A.R.S. §12-349 and ARCAP 25.

Court
Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One
Date
2026-07-15
Who used the AI
Not recorded
AI tool
Not identified in the record
Conduct
Self-represented appellant Jeffrey Kotchka's opening brief, challenging a probate ruling, cited hallucinated legal authorities and misrepresented case citations that he obtained through generative AI ('Gen-AI') and did nothing to verify. After the appellee identified the fabrications and after a show-cause hearing, Kotchka neither moved to amend his brief nor withdrew the appeal, continuing to maintain claims unsupported by any valid authority.
Outcome
Sanctions
Penalty
No monetary penalty recorded
Regulatory outcome
No separate regulatory disposition recorded
Status
Verified against listed sources
Last checked
2026-09-03

What was fabricated or misused

  • Six of eight citations in the opening brief were deficient, including two cases that simply did not exist; the opinion did not reproduce the case names.
  • Mis-citation to wrong pages or paragraphs, misstated rules, unsupported principles and misrepresented case facts in the opening brief; the opinion did not enumerate them.

What the court said

“More concerning, however, is Mr. Kotchka's failure to ensure the validity of legal citations in his opening brief that he obtained through use of generative artificial intelligence (“Gen-AI”), including his inclusion of hallucinated authorities.”
Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, ¶2
“Instead, it contains eight citations, six of which are deficient. The citation errors include the use of cases for principles that are not supported by the case, mis-citation to wrong pages or paragraphs, misstatement of rules enunciated in cases, and misrepresentation of case facts.”
Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, ¶8
“Thus, whether attorney or self-represented litigant, all who file documents with the courts remain directly and personally responsible for the content, accuracy, and quality of legal filings submitted to all courts, including this court.”
Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, ¶18
“Accordingly, citing a hallucinated case in a legal filing is sanctionable conduct.”
Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, ¶18

Timeline

  1. Decedent died, leaving three adult children.
  2. Court of Appeals affirmed the probate order.
  3. Court struck inaccurate and false citations from the opening brief.
  4. Court awarded fees and costs caused by hallucinated and misrepresented citations.

Why this case matters

Dineen/Shibata adds a state appellate answer to self-represented AI misuse. Unlike Mata and Leiske, the filer was not counsel; unlike Jones, the court imposed fee sanctions after finding that the appeal was maintained despite warnings. The opinion also supplies a rule for Arizona cases: hallucinated citations are sanctionable under ARCAP 25, A.R.S. § 12-349 and inherent authority, and lack of intent does not excuse failure to verify.

Practice note

A self-represented litigant who uses Gen-AI must still cite real law and record facts. Before filing an appellate brief, check each case in an official court database, a public law library, or with legal help. If an appellee or court identifies false citations, move to amend or withdraw rather than maintaining unsupported claims.

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, “Dineen/Shibata v. Kotchka, No. 1 CA-CV 25-0606 PB (Ariz. Ct. App.)”, safelegalai.com/tracker/dineen-shibata-v-kotchka (accessed 2026-09-16). Data: CC BY 4.0.

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