Incident Tracker / United States (state)
Kiser v. DeSimone Auto Group, No. 2428 EDA 2025 (Pa. Super. Ct.)
·Superior Court of Pennsylvania·US-STATEWarning
In Pennsylvania, counsel for Paige and Ty Kiser cited a non-existent Superior Court decision, Com. v. Reid, for an appellate issue in a consumer dispute. The Superior Court called the authority counterfeit, suggested chatbot use as an explanation, treated the issue as waived for underdevelopment, and affirmed judgment for the auto-dealer defendants.
- Court
- Superior Court of Pennsylvania
- Date
- 2026-08-27
- Who used the AI
- Lawyer
- AI tool
- Not identified in the record
- Conduct
- Appellants' counsel cited a non-existent decision, Com. v. Reid, 770 A.2d 771 (Pa. Super. 2001), to support an appellate issue. The court said the counterfeit authority appeared to be a chatbot error, treated the issue as waived for underdevelopment, and affirmed.
- Outcome
- Warning
- Penalty
- No monetary penalty recorded
- Regulatory outcome
- No separate regulatory disposition recorded
- Status
- Verified against listed sources
- Last checked
- 2026-09-04
What was fabricated or misused
- Com v. Reid, 770 A.2d 771 (Pa. Super. 2001) — the Superior Court could find no such case; the citation led to Commonwealth v. Burton, 770 A.2d 771 (Pa. Super. 1999)
- Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 147 (2000) — the brief attributed the majority opinion to Justice Scalia; the court said it was delivered by Justice O’Connor and did not apply
What the court said
“To the extent Appellant intended to rely on a case cited to as “Com v. Reid, 770 A.2d 771 (Pa. Super. 2001), this Court can find no such case in existence.”
“As this section of Appellants’ brief is underdeveloped, and supported in part by non-existent or unlocatable precedent, we find the issue presented therein is waived.”
“Further, in light of this unlocatable precedent, “this Court is left to guess whether this counterfeit authority is the product of a chatbot, or if there is a more nefarious explanation for the misinformation.””
Timeline
- Appellants purchased the Jeep from DeSimone.
- Judgment entered after the trial court granted DeSimone's compulsory nonsuit.
- Superior Court found Com v. Reid unlocatable, treated the issue as waived, and affirmed.
Why this case matters
Kiser adds a state-appellate example where false authority did not lead to a money sanction. The Superior Court used the counterfeit case as part of a waiver analysis, treating the affected issue as underdeveloped rather than opening a separate sanctions track. Unlike Mata v Avianca, the filing did not include fabricated opinions or a second submission defending them. The harm was still procedural: a brief asked an appellate court to infer an evidentiary rule from a case that could not be found, and a separate misattribution of Reeves left another argument impaired.
Practice note
For Pennsylvania appellate work, cite-checking must go beyond confirming that a volume and page exist. Counsel should open each authority, confirm the caption, court, year, author if relevant, and holding, then tie it to the argument required by Pa.R.A.P. 2119(a). A mismatched citation like Burton/Reid should be removed before filing, not left for the court to resolve.
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, “Kiser v. DeSimone Auto Group, No. 2428 EDA 2025 (Pa. Super. Ct.)”, safelegalai.com/tracker/kiser-v-desimone-auto-group (accessed 2026-10-07). Data: CC BY 4.0.