Florida appellate court imposes sanctions over unreliable AI-assisted briefing
The Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal has affirmed summary judgment and granted appellate sanctions after finding that an initial appellate brief contained fabricated cases, fictional quotations, inaccurate citations, and authorities that did not support the propositions for which they were cited.
In its October 7, 2026 opinion in Kid International, LLC v. City National Bank of Florida and 2655 SW 25, LLC, No. 4D2025-2599, the court granted sanctions under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.410(b).
The opinion states that the brief cited Ogilvie v. Sebring Airport Authority seven times, including a quotation attributed to that case. The cited case was fabricated or nonexistent. The court also identified inaccurate citations and descriptions of holdings, fictional quotations from actual cases, and authorities that did not support the cited arguments.
Counsel told the court that generative AI had been one component of the research and drafting process. The court’s opinion focused on the resulting failure to verify the legal authorities and quotations presented in the filing.
What the opinion establishes
The Fourth District:
- affirmed the summary judgment under review;
- granted sanctions under Rule 9.410(b);
- awarded reasonable appellate attorney’s fees against the appellants and their counsel, jointly and severally; and
- remanded for determination of the amount of those fees.
The opinion does not set a dollar amount for the fee award; it remanded for the amount to be determined.
The court also included a mandatory instruction concerning a potential rehearing motion: “If a motion for rehearing is filed in this court, then services rendered in connection with the filing of the motion, including, but not limited to, preparation of a responsive pleading, shall be considered in computing the amount of the fees.”
The opinion further states: “Not final until disposition of timely-filed motion for rehearing.” That notice makes the opinion’s finality conditional when issued; this article does not infer from the opinion alone whether a rehearing motion was later filed or resolved.
Why the ruling matters for AI-assisted legal filings
The decision is a pointed example of the verification risks associated with generative-AI-assisted legal research and drafting. The problem identified by the court was not simply that AI was used. Rather, counsel presented legal propositions, cases, and quotations that were not reliably checked before being filed.
For litigants and lawyers, the opinion underscores that a brief’s authorities must be accurate, real, and supportive of the argument for which they are offered. A filing can appear conventionally researched while still containing invented or distorted authority if AI-generated output is not independently verified against primary legal sources.
The ruling does not announce a general ban on AI use or establish a standalone new professional rule governing AI. It applies existing appellate-sanctions authority to the briefing conduct before the court.
The article is based on the published Fourth District opinion. The related Florida ACIS docket is linked in the metadata, but its docket entries were not text-extractable for this review.
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