Burches v. Equifax Information Services, LLC
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana · E.D. La. · Louisiana bar guidance
Conduct
A pro se plaintiff kept filing briefs with fabricated or unverifiable citations after admitting the first set and being warned he would be sanctioned personally.
Consequence
Rule 11 sanction of $500 payable to the court, with a further warning that future false citations may lead to dismissal.
Lesson
Here the court excused a first round of fabricated citations for a pro se litigant, then imposed a monetary sanction when they recurred after an express warning.
Verified September 29, 2026
- Citation
- Burches v. Equifax Information Services, LLC, No. 25-804, Order and Reasons (E.D. La. May 11, 2026) (Morgan, J.), ECF No. 314
- Decided
- May 11, 2026
Summary
Taiujuan Burches, a self-represented plaintiff suing Equifax and other defendants, "repeatedly filed briefs containing fabricated, inaccurate, or unverifiable legal citations," according to Judge Susie Morgan's order. The problem first surfaced when Trans Union told the court that his reply on a motion for leave to amend relied on "fabricated and/or non-existent legal authorities." Before oral argument, Burches filed a Notice of Clarification admitting the citations in that reply were fabricated and apologizing. At argument the court declined to sanction him because of his pro se status, warned that future fabricated citations would result in sanctions against him personally, and ordered him to review all his prior filings; he reported three more incorrect citations. He then filed an opposition to Comenity Bank's motion to compel arbitration with further incorrect citations, prompting a March 2, 2026 show-cause order that asked for the source of a quotation attributed to the Fifth Circuit in Will-Drill Resources, Inc. v. Samson Resources Co. and the claimed holding of Hays v. HCA Holdings, Inc. After that order, he filed another brief citing "Turner v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc., 2006 WL 1984362," which the court could not locate.
- AI tool:
- AI, tool not named (the court's May 20, 2026 order states "Plaintiff again improperly used AI while preparing his filings"; the May 11 sanction order itself does not mention AI)
- Sanction amount:
- $500 payable to the Clerk of Court by June 10, 2026
What sanction did the court impose?
After a May 11, 2026 show-cause hearing at which Burches admitted signing and filing multiple briefs without verifying their citations, the court found that he violated Rule 11(b)(2). Applying an objective standard of reasonableness to an unrepresented party, it held that the repeated submission of false or unverifiable authority, "particularly after an express warning from the Court, falls below the objective standard of reasonableness required by Rule 11." The court sanctioned him $500, payable to the Clerk of Court by June 10, 2026, and warned again that any future filing containing fabricated authorities, miscited holdings, or false quotations may result in sanctions, including dismissal of the action. The sanction order does not mention artificial intelligence, but in a May 20, 2026 order on Trans Union's motion to dismiss the court wrote that "Plaintiff again improperly used AI while preparing his filings," before noting that it had sanctioned him on May 11.
Why does Burches v. Equifax Information Services, LLC matter for law firms using AI?
Judge Morgan’s order follows a graduated path. The first round of fabricated citations, which Burches admitted in a Notice of Clarification, drew only a warning because of his pro se status, along with a directive to audit his earlier filings. The second round, in the opposition to Comenity Bank’s motion to compel arbitration, drew a show-cause order that identified specific problems: the source of a quotation attributed to the Fifth Circuit and the purported holding of a second case. A third brief filed after that order cited a Westlaw number that the court could not match to any case, and the court checked the Turner district-court docket to confirm that no order was entered on the cited date.
The legal analysis is brief. The court applied Rule 11’s objective standard to an unrepresented party and quoted authority that, “[a]t the very least, the duties imposed by Rule 11 require that attorneys read, and thereby confirm the existence and validity of, the legal authorities on which they rely.” The decisive facts were the prior warning and Burches’s own representation that future filings would contain only verified citations.
The sanction order itself does not mention artificial intelligence. The AI link comes from the court’s later order on the motion to dismiss, which states that “Plaintiff’s improper use of AI and hallucinated citations continued” and that he “again improperly used AI while preparing his filings.” Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that, in this case, a court that first excused fabricated citations from a self-represented litigant moved to a monetary sanction and a dismissal warning once the pattern continued after notice.
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.
- Review opposing filings for citations that cannot be located. Here Trans Union's motion for leave to file a surreply first raised the issue, and the court later checked a Westlaw cite against the cited case's own district-court docket.
- Document when and how a citation problem was raised with the court; the order traces a warning, a self-audit directive, and a show-cause order before any sanction.
- Consider that the court here held an unrepresented party to Rule 11's objective standard of reasonableness.
Sources
Primary sources
- No AI tool is identified. The AI attribution rests on footnote 24 of the court's May 20, 2026 order (ECF No. 315), not on the May 11 sanction order, which never mentions artificial intelligence.