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AI incident #1682 ·

D.C. Court of Appeals Struck Deutsche Bank National Trust Company Brief After Attorney Used Google Generative AI Search Tool and Filed Four Nonexistent Case Citations

Open on the AI Incident Database 2 news reports Synced from the AIID API · record last edited 8 Sep 2026

What happened

In Douglas v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Co., attorney Loishirl W. Hall acknowledged using Google's generative AI search tool to locate case authority and failing to verify citations before an appellate brief was filed. The D.C. Court of Appeals found four cited cases did not exist, said the filing misdirected the court and burdened judicial resources, struck Deutsche Bank's brief, and referred the matter for disciplinary review.

Only the incident metadata is stored here. The underlying news reports are on the AI Incident Database (CC BY-SA 4.0); use the links above to read them.

News reports (2)

Coverage catalogued by the AI Incident Database. Titles link to the original publisher; the text is not reproduced here.

  1. DC court faults lawyers for Deutsche Bank subsidiary over AI hallucination
    reuters.com · Mike Scarcella · AIID #7922
  2. Douglas v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Co., No. 24-CV-1099, Published Order
    fingfx.thomsonreuters.com · District of Columbia Court of Appeals · AIID #7923

Who was involved

Alleged developer
Google
On AIID: Google
Alleged harmed party
Parties to legal proceedings Legal clients Judicial integrity Epistemic integrity District of Columbia Court of Appeals Courts
On AIID: Parties to legal proceedings, Legal clients, Judicial integrity, Epistemic integrity, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Courts

AI systems implicated

Google SearchAI-assisted legal research systems

Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)

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Linked by AIID editors or by its text-similarity model.