AI Regulation Tracker  /  Court decision

California Orders a Lawyer to Pay $1,500 Over AI-Fabricated Case Quotations

The First Appellate District ordered attorney Carlton Floyd to pay $1,500 to the court clerk and referred him to the State Bar after his opening brief attributed fabricated quotations to real cases. The opinion was certified for publication on July 10, 2026.

By Anthony Guerriero  ·  Reviewed by Anthony Guerriero  ·  Published July 12, 2026  ·  Court decision

Regulatory briefing

Case

Del Biaggio v. Bansen

Court

California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four

Docket

No. A174647 (appeal from Humboldt County Super. Ct. No. CV1901078)

Status

Published opinion, certified for publication July 10, 2026 (subject to ordinary finality, review, and depublication rules)

Bindingness

As a published opinion it binds all California superior (trial) courts statewide (Auto Equity Sales v. Superior Court, 1962); persuasive authority for other Courts of Appeal

Statute

State Bar referral under Business and Professions Code section 6086.7, subdivision (a)(3)

What the court actually held

The appeal was about attorney fees. To argue that paralegal fees were recoverable, Floyd's opening brief quoted the California Supreme Court's decision in PLCM Group v. Drexler. The quoted language does not exist. The court found that no such language appears in PLCM, or in any case it was aware of, and that PLCM did not even address the subject of paralegal fees. There was more than one invented quotation. The brief put fabricated words in the mouths of real cases and misdescribed another, and the court noted it did not catalog every error.

The result was mixed. The court vacated a separate trial-court sanction, reversed part of the fee ruling in Floyd's client's favor, and rejected the opposing party's claim that the appeal was frivolous. Then it did something narrower. It ordered Floyd to pay a $1,500 sanction to the clerk of the court, and it directed the clerk to forward the opinion to the State Bar. He was not disbarred and he was not suspended. He was sanctioned and referred.

Who this affects

Because it is published, it binds every California trial court statewide, which is what publication does under Auto Equity Sales v. Superior Court, and it is persuasive authority for the other Courts of Appeal. Read wider, it is a warning to any licensed professional whose signature turns an AI draft into a filed document or a client deliverable. The court was interpreting a lawyer's duties, not writing a rule for every profession, but the logic travels. If your name is on it, you own what is in it.

The workflow change worth taping to your monitor

Floyd did not simply file an AI draft without thinking. By his own account he had a process, and he had assigned a paralegal to check the citations. The court held that was not enough. His plan to have the paralegal verify the citations rather than read the cases himself was, in the court's words, inappropriate "even if it had not gone awry." And confirming that a citation points to a real case is not the same as reading the case. The fabricated quotes came attached to real reporter cites, so a check that only confirms a case exists would still miss that the case never said the quoted words. The court quoted the settled duty that attorneys must read the legal authorities they cite.

The opinion does not use the phrase "non-delegable," and I am not going to put it in the court's mouth. But the operational takeaway is exactly that. The lawyer who signs the brief reads the cases, not a delegate working from a checklist that only confirms a case number resolves. The court also flagged a detail worth sitting with. The AI-supplied quotations stated the precise proposition Floyd wanted, and the court said that should have been a warning rather than a relief. When the machine hands you the exact quote you were hoping for, that is the moment to slow down.

Why it reaches past California

This is not the first published California opinion on AI-fabricated citations. The court itself cites earlier decisions, People v. Alvarez and Schlichter v. Kennedy, and courts around the country have been sanctioning lawyers for AI fabrications for a couple of years. What makes this one useful elsewhere is not novelty. It is that this lawyer did more than the careless filers in the early cases. He claimed a process and a human checker, and he still got sanctioned. A court in another state that wants to reject the "but I had a protocol" defense now has a clean, published example to cite. The $1,500 is almost beside the point. The State Bar referral and a published opinion carrying your name are the real cost.