Incident Tracker / United States (federal)
Merz v. City of Kalama
·United States District Court for the Western District of Washington·US-FEDNoted, no consequenceprovisional
Western District of Washington on 2026-02-13 in Merz v. City of Kalama found the self-represented party's briefing misused Caruso for a per se defamation point and gave an inaccurate Sorensen citation later corrected to Norg. The court granted the motions to dismiss and for judgment on the pleadings, struck improper notices, and dismissed all claims with prejudice.
- Court
- United States District Court for the Western District of Washington
- Date
- 2026-02-13
- Who used the AI
- Litigant in person
- AI tool
- Not identified in the record
- Conduct
- Merz cited Sorensen v. City of Bellingham for a proposition and later corrected the source to Norg v. City of Seattle; the court found Norg tenuous and noted another misleading use of Mazzeo.
- Outcome
- Noted, no consequence
- Penalty
- No monetary penalty recorded
- 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, “Merz v. City of Kalama”, safelegalai.com/tracker/merz-v-city-of-kalama (accessed 2026-10-07). Data: CC BY 4.0.