Conrad Smith et al. v. Donald J. Trump et al.
D. DC · Oct 16, 2025
- Jurisdiction
- federal
- Court
- D. DC
- Record ID
- conrad-smith-et-al-v-donald-j-trump-et-al-2025-10-16
- Observed outcome
- The court issued an Order to Show Cause requiring counsel to explain the presence of fabricated citations and her failure to correct them.
- Known monetary consequence
- Not recorded
Why this matter warrants attention
The court issued an Order to Show Cause requiring counsel to explain the inclusion of fabricated local rule citations and false quotations in a court filing, and to justify the failure to correct these errors after they were identified by opposing counsel.
The court reasoned that counsel knowingly made false statements of law to the tribunal by including non-existent local rules and fabricated quotations, and failed to fulfill the duty to correct these statements after they were brought to her attention.
Verify every rule citation — fabricated local-rule quotes trigger show-cause orders even without case-law hallucinations.
Failure modes and consequences
- Fabricated_citations
- Fabricated_quotes
- Failure_to_correct_record
- Fake Citations
- Fabricated Quotes
- Civil Rights
- AI attribution
- Implied
- Recorded tool
- AI (implied, unspecified)
- Known monetary consequence
- Not recorded
- Procedural posture
- Order to Show Cause issued by the District Court on October 16, 2025, following the filing of an opposition brief containing fabricated legal authorities.
Damien Charlotin case archive
Publisher document archive. The recorded document is hosted in the upstream publisher archive.
Open underlying sourceA recorded source link is not a substitute for checking the underlying order, filing, opinion, or disciplinary record.
What this record does—and does not—establish
The source material implies AI usage through the nature of the hallucinations.
The record summarizes the outcome described in the linked public source. The recorded document is hosted in the upstream publisher archive. This page is not a substitute for the complete docket, subsequent history, or jurisdiction-specific advice.
Latest evidence review: Primary Document Verified (high confidence).
Controls suggested by the public record
- Implement mandatory verification protocols for all rule citations and block quotations against official court sources.
- Establish a formal process for immediate correction of filings upon discovery of any inaccurate citation or quote.
- Ensure that any corrective filing addresses the entirety of the identified errors rather than partial corrections.
- Maintain strict supervision over AI-assisted research to ensure all cited rules exist within the specific jurisdiction.