Family law Case 2024/FA/315
CA Ghent (11th) · Sep 18, 2025
- Jurisdiction
- international
- Court
- CA Ghent (11th)
- Record ID
- family-law-case-2024-fa-315-2025-09-18
- Observed outcome
- The court disregarded all fictitious and unfindable sources and formally admonished the counsel for the submission of unverified content.
- Known monetary consequence
- Not recorded
Why this matter warrants attention
The Ghent Court of Appeal disregarded all fictitious and unfindable sources cited in a party's submission and formally admonished counsel for failing to verify the accuracy of AI-assisted legal research, which resulted in the inclusion of fabricated case law, misrepresented statutes, and non-existent doctrinal works.
The court reasoned that the submission of unverified, AI-generated content is unacceptable because it causes significant, unjustifiable waste of judicial time and public resources. The court emphasized that while AI can be a valuable tool, its use without rigorous human verification is irresponsible and undermines the integrity of the judicial process.
This case highlights the risks of delegating legal research to AI without human verification. It serves as a precedent for how courts may respond to the submission of 'hallucinated' authorities, emphasizing that counsel bears full professional responsibility for the accuracy of all cited materials.
Failure modes and consequences
- Hallucinated_case_law
- Hallucinated_statutory_text
- Hallucinated_doctrinal_sources
- Lack_of_human_verification
- Fake Citations
- Fabricated Quotes
- AI attribution
- Implied
- Recorded tool
- AI (implied, unspecified)
- Known monetary consequence
- Not recorded
- Procedural posture
- Appellate proceedings before the Ghent Court of Appeal (11th Chamber) following an appeal and incidental appeal in a family law matter.
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
Court questioned counsel regarding AI usage.
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
- Verify the existence, citation, court, and precedential status of every authority before filing.
- Compare every quoted passage and pincite directly with the underlying opinion or filing.
- Confirm that each authority supports the stated proposition and has not been mischaracterized.
- Apply the same source-checking controls to AI (implied, unspecified) output as to any other research input.