The chatbot citation that cost $5,000
In 2023 a federal judge sanctioned lawyers whose brief cited cases that do not exist -- the Mata v. Avianca order (678 F. Supp. 3d 443 (S.D.N.Y. 2023)), a public record. This is what that failure mode looks like to a checker.
The trap in a fabricated citation is that it looks perfect: real reporter, real volume, plausible page. The demo brief cites Holliday v. Atl. Capital Corp., 738 F.2d 1153 -- but the case living at that location is Gibbs v. Maxwell House, decided the same year by the same court. A hurried reader sees 1984 and the 11th Circuit and moves on; the check sees a different case entirely.
CiteProof reports this as its own verdict -- the cite points to a different case -- with Gibbs v. Maxwell House named beside the claim, plus a corrected-cite suggestion. It flags; it never rewrites. The attorney decides what the brief should have said.
The Mata lawyers were sanctioned under Rule 11. Every filing still needs attorney review -- this page exists so the review starts from a flagged row instead of a blind one.
This check found 1 citation found, 0 quotes found. Open the full worked verification.
Worked examples run against a fixture corpus for determinism; your checks run against the live public corpus. Attorney review required before any filing — see the User Agreement.