Incident Tracker / United States (federal)
Pleasant v. Burns
·U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama·US-FEDPendingprovisional
On 2026-04-08, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama dismissed the case without prejudice after the plaintiff ignored orders to address Rule 11 concerns about nonexistent cases and fabricated quotations. A self-represented party submitted a complaint with at least one false quotations, fabricated or nonexistent authorities and mischaracterized authorities.
- Court
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama
- Date
- 2026-04-08
- Who used the AI
- Litigant in person
- AI tool
- Not identified in the record
- Conduct
- The complaint used at least one false quotations, fabricated or nonexistent authorities and mischaracterized authorities that the court found nonexistent, misquoted, or unsupported for the propositions asserted.
- Outcome
- Pending
- 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.
Similar incidents on the record
- Ashmeade v. Amazon.com Services LLC, No. 7:23-cv-04331-KMK-VR (S.D.N.Y.)2026-08-27 · US District Court, Southern District of New York · WarningIn the Southern District of New York, self-represented plaintiff Keith Ashmeade cited two nonexistent Southern District decisions while litigating discovery issues against Amazon. Magistrate Judge Reznik identified the…
- James v. Conley, No. 1:23-cv-24467 (S.D. Fla.)2026-08-27 · US District Court for the Southern District of Florida (Magistrate Judge Elfenbein, report and recommendation) · PendingIn the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, a magistrate judge found that plaintiff's Fifth Amended Complaint pleaded nonexistent police-training publications that counsel conceded were AI hallucinati…
- Johnson v. Nationstar Mortgage LLC, No. 1:25-cv-00855-JRR (D. Md.)2026-08-26 · US District Court, District of Maryland · WarningIn the District of Maryland, self-represented plaintiff Darrin Johnson again cited a case the court could not locate, after an earlier Rule 11 warning. Judge Rubin said the authority appeared to be hallucinated from gen…
- Potterf v. Wessels, No. 1:26-cv-10860-MFL-PTM (E.D. Mich.)2026-08-26 · US District Court, Eastern District of Michigan · WarningIn the Eastern District of Michigan, self-represented plaintiffs admitted using artificial intelligence to draft objections with fictitious or erroneous citations and an invented Supreme Court quotation. Judge Leitman d…
Cite this record
SafeLegalAI Global Legal AI Incident Tracker, “Pleasant v. Burns”, safelegalai.com/tracker/pleasant-v-burns (accessed 2026-09-08). Data: CC BY 4.0.