Barteca Holdings LLC v. Tacobarn Newtown LLC
U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut · D. Conn. · Connecticut bar guidance
Conduct
Defense counsel filed two briefs with nonexistent quotations, wrong pin cites and misstated holdings after using Open Law, Claude and ChatGPT and checking only that the cases existed.
Consequence
Here the court found Rule 11 bad faith, fined counsel $3,500, referred him to the Grievance Committee, and required Westlaw or Lexis hyperlinks for every authority in future filings.
Lesson
Here, Shepardizing every case did not satisfy Rule 11 because counsel never checked that the quotations and pin cites matched the opinions.
Verified September 29, 2026
- Citation
- Barteca Holdings LLC v. Tacobarn Newtown LLC, No. 26-CV-250 (VDO), Order Imposing Sanctions (D. Conn. Aug. 4, 2026) (Oliver, J.), ECF No. 43
- Decided
- August 4, 2026
Summary
In a trademark and trade dress action by Barteca Holdings LLC and Barteca Intermediate Holdings LLC against two Tacobarn entities, defense counsel Hilary Miller filed a motion to dismiss and a motion to exclude extrinsic evidence. While drafting a ruling on the second motion, the court found quotations that do not exist, erroneous pin cites and misstatements of the law across both briefs, attributed to cases including Ashcroft v. Iqbal, Landscape Forms v. Columbia Cascade, Yurman Design v. PAJ, Chambers v. Time Warner, Friedl v. City of New York, Fonte and Cortec, and issued an order to show cause on June 12, 2026. Miller "accept[ed] full and unqualified responsibility" in his written response and said his verification had confirmed only that the cited cases existed. At the June 25 hearing he explained that this was the first matter in which he had used AI: he wrote the brief himself, then used Open Law, Claude and ChatGPT for suggestions on arguments and cases, and Shepardized every case, but did not adequately verify pin cites or quotations. The court noted he did not submit entirely fabricated cases.
- AI tool:
- Open Law, Claude and ChatGPT (counsel explained at the show-cause hearing that he used them for suggestions on a brief he first drafted himself)
- Sanction amount:
- $3,500 deposited with the Clerk of Court; referral to the District of Connecticut Grievance Committee under Local Rule 83(c)(2); Westlaw or Lexis hyperlinks required for every authority in defendants' future filings
What sanction did the court impose?
Judge Vernon D. Oliver found that Miller violated Rule 11 because he did not conduct a reasonable human verification of the authorities, and made the subjective bad-faith finding required for sua sponte sanctions in the Second Circuit, reasoning that his Rule 11 certifications "conveyed a level of knowledge and verification that he did not possess." The court also found he fell short of his duty of competence under Connecticut Rule of Professional Conduct 1.1 and weighed his prompt candor and remedial steps in mitigation. It noted that the District of Connecticut's AI notice was posted on the case docket and that the judge's pretrial preferences warn about hallucinated cases. It imposed a $3,500 sanction payable to the Clerk by August 14, 2026, referred the matter to the Grievance Committee, treated the motion to exclude as withdrawn, terminated the motion to dismiss with leave to refile a corrected version, and required that every authority cited by defendants in future filings include a Westlaw or Lexis hyperlink. It declined to order fee reimbursement to plaintiffs because no Rule 11 motion had been filed.
Why does Barteca Holdings LLC v. Tacobarn Newtown LLC matter for law firms using AI?
Barteca is a useful counterpoint to the many orders involving invented cases. Every case Hilary Miller cited was real, and he had Shepardized each one. The defects were in what the briefs said the cases said: quotations attributed to Landscape Forms, Yurman, Chambers, Friedl and Fonte that the court’s table marks “Quote does not exist,” language attributed to Iqbal that does not appear on the cited page, pin cites to pages outside the opinions, and propositions the cases did not support. Judge Oliver applied Andre’s definition of hallucination, which treats “fabricated quotations from actual cases” and “misstatements of law” as hallucinations alongside fabricated cases, and found that the first of the Mattox factors, verification and inquiry, weighed toward sanctions: “Had Attorney Miller undertaken the routine task of cite checking his brief, he would have discovered the errors the Court later identified.”
The bad-faith finding did not rest on concealment. The court credited Miller’s candor and remediation, but reasoned that when he signed the motions he “lacked the knowledge necessary to truthfully represent that the legal contentions contained therein were warranted by existing law,” so that “[h]is certifications therefore conveyed a level of knowledge and verification that he did not possess.” It also stressed notice: the District of Connecticut’s AI notice was posted on the case docket and warned that hallucinated briefing “will often result in sanctions absent reasonable excuse,” and the judge’s pretrial preferences flagged the same risk.
The remedy combined a $3,500 fine, a Grievance Committee referral, and a forward-looking citation requirement. Because the court acted on its own show-cause order, it declined Miller’s offer to reimburse plaintiffs’ fees. Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that, in this court’s analysis, a citator check that a case exists and remains good law is not a substitute for reading the quoted passage.
Implications for your firm
Operational steps a firm reading this case may wish to consider documenting. Strategic and rule-application calls belong to your firm's attorneys.
- Verify quotations, pin cites and parentheticals against the opinion text, not only a citator result. Here counsel Shepardized every case and was still sanctioned for quotations that did not exist.
- Review the court's posted AI notices at case opening. The court treated the district notice on the docket and the judge's published preferences as advance warning that heightened the violation.
- Document candor and remediation steps promptly; the court weighed counsel's immediate acceptance of responsibility in mitigation, although it did not avoid a bad-faith finding.
- Consider that a sanctions order can add case-specific filing requirements; here every authority in defendants' future filings must carry a Westlaw or Lexis hyperlink.