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Incident Tracker / Canada

Kibondo-Kilongozi v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 928

·Federal Court of Canada·CAWarning

In a judicial review in the Federal Court of Canada concerning a Congolese child's adoption-based visa, Justice Gascon expressly found that a Federal Court of Appeal decision cited by the applicants' counsel did not exist. The finding accompanied criticism of counsel's non-compliance with scheduling orders, though the court recorded no separate costs sanction for the fabricated citation.

Court
Federal Court of Canada
Date
2026-07-10
Who used the AI
Lawyer
AI tool
Not identified in the record
Conduct
Counsel for an adoptive family seeking judicial review of a visa decision cited a nonexistent Federal Court of Appeal decision. The court also criticised counsel's late filings as unacceptable and reprehensible.
Outcome
Warning
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

  • Stum c Canada (Ministre de la Citoyenneté et de l’Immigration), 2004 CAF 148 — no such Federal Court of Appeal decision exists

What the court said

“I, however, emphasized that this late filing was clearly prejudicial to the Minister and was contrary to the Court’s procedural norms and guidelines, to elementary procedural fairness and to the Order Granting Leave”
Federal Court of Canada, [10]
““Stum c Canada (Ministre de la Citoyenneté et de l’Immigration), 2004 CAF 148” [an inexistent decision]”
Federal Court of Canada, [24]
“The Officer’s analysis is very detailed, thorough and intelligible.”
Federal Court of Canada, [96]
“As the Minister is not asking for costs, none will be awarded, even though the actions of counsel for Jean Lucien are certainly regrettable and were specifically condemned by the Court in the Adjourning Order.”
Federal Court of Canada, [100]

Timeline

  1. Officer interviewed Jean Lucien virtually in French at the Kinshasa visa centre.
  2. PFL response was received with an inexistent Federal Court of Appeal citation.
  3. Officer refused the permanent resident visa application.
  4. Federal Court granted leave and set the procedural schedule.
  5. Counsel served an undated Supplemental Memorandum at 4:06 p.m. before the hearing.
  6. Federal Court heard the rescheduled application by videoconference.
  7. Application was dismissed without costs.

Why this case matters

Kibondo-Kilongozi adds a Canadian immigration record in which the nonexistent authority appeared inside a procedural-fairness argument, not a civil damages claim or family-law motion. Unlike Ko v Li and Lee, the Federal Court did not impose costs or refer counsel because the Minister did not ask for costs and the court resolved the visa review on the record. The incident still matters because the invented Federal Court of Appeal citation sat alongside late, unsigned and abandoned submissions. It shows how hallucinated authority can add strain to a file already affected by missed scheduling duties.

Practice note

Federal Court counsel should run every Federal Court of Appeal citation through the court website, CanLII or another reliable database before relying on it in submissions. A supplemental memorandum that changes the case law also needs leave, a signature and timely service under the scheduling order. Late filing and a false citation are separate problems; fixing one does not cure the other.

Primary sources for this incident

Related regulation records for this incident

No related regulation record has been linked to this incident yet.

Similar incidents on the record

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  • Law Society of Ontario v. Lee, 2026 ONLSTH 1362026-07-16 · Law Society Tribunal (Ontario), Hearing Division · SuspensionThe Law Society Tribunal suspended Toronto lawyer Jisuh Lee's licence for six months and ordered CAD 10,000 in costs after she filed a factum containing AI-generated fictitious or irrelevant precedents in a family law p…
  • Reddy v Saroya, 2025 ABCA 3222025-09-26 · Court of Appeal of Alberta · PendingIn Alberta, the Court of Appeal held counsel responsible for a contractor-drafted factum containing seven nonexistent authorities. Its September 2025 judgment invited submissions on personal costs against lead counsel.…
  • Hussein v. Canada (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship), 2025 FC 1060; 2025 FC 11382025-06-24 · Federal Court of Canada · Costs orderIn Canada's Federal Court, applicant's counsel used Visto.ai in an immigration matter and filed submissions relying on non-existent cases without declaring the AI use. Associate Judge Catharine Moore found the conduct c…

Cite this record

SafeLegalAI Global Legal AI Incident Tracker, “Kibondo-Kilongozi v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 928”, safelegalai.com/tracker/kibondo-kilongozi-v-canada (accessed 2026-10-07). Data: CC BY 4.0.

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