Compania General de Combustibles S.A. v. RGR Global Logistics, LLC
U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, Houston Division · S.D. Tex. · Texas bar guidance
Conduct
Union Pacific's motion to dismiss cited a purported 1968 Texas Supreme Court decision the court could not find in Westlaw, Lexis, or the South Western Reporter.
Consequence
Here the court ordered Union Pacific to produce the case and state what tools its counsel used, and to say explicitly if AI was used; no ruling on the response yet.
Lesson
Here the court asked the filer to name its research tools, and to say so explicitly if AI was used, without imposing any sanction.
Verified September 30, 2026
- Citation
- Compania General de Combustibles S.A. v. RGR Global Logistics, LLC, No. 4:25-cv-6020, Order Denying Motion to Dismiss and to Show Cause (S.D. Tex. June 23, 2026) (Ganjei, J.), Doc. 28
- Filing date
- June 23, 2026
Summary
Compania General de Combustibles S.A. and two other plaintiffs sued Union Pacific Railroad Company and others after a Union Pacific locomotive collided with a tractor-trailer carrying the plaintiffs' cargo. Union Pacific moved to dismiss the negligence claim against it. In its arguments on that claim, Union Pacific wrote that "Railroads are entitled to presume motorists will obey traffic laws" and cited "Missouri Pac. R.R. Co. v. Shiflet, 425 S.W.2d 662, 667 (Tex. 1968)" (Doc. 9 at 4). Judge Nicholas J. Ganjei wrote that the court, "exercising due diligence, has been unable to locate the above case. Neither the case name nor the reporter information yield results in Westlaw or LexisNexis, and the case is not printed in the South Western Reporter. The Court therefore has reason to believe that this case does not exist." The order does not name Union Pacific's counsel.
- AI tool:
- Unidentified (the court ordered Union Pacific to state what search engine or other tools its counsel used and said that if counsel "used artificial intelligence to aid in their legal research, they should explicitly state such"; no finding of AI use)
- Amount or terms:
- None imposed; show-cause directive to produce the cited case and explain how counsel located it
What is the current procedural posture?
In an Order Denying Motion to Dismiss and to Show Cause, the court denied Union Pacific's motion on the merits, holding that the Carmack Amendment did not preempt the negligence claim because Union Pacific was not carrying the cargo, that the complaint plausibly pleaded negligence, and that the economic loss doctrine did not apply. It ordered Union Pacific to provide the Shiflet case to the court by June 29, 2026, "accompanied by a brief statement regarding the search engine or other tool(s) its counsel used to locate the opinion," adding, "If counsel used artificial intelligence to aid in their legal research, they should explicitly state such." The order does not mention sanctions. The docket shows an entry on June 29, 2026 (ECF No. 29) that is not publicly available, and no later order on the citation through the last entry read (Sept. 28, 2026).
Why does Compania General de Combustibles S.A. v. RGR Global Logistics, LLC matter for law firms using AI?
The order pairs a routine merits ruling with a targeted inquiry into a single citation. Union Pacific relied on “Missouri Pac. R.R. Co. v. Shiflet, 425 S.W.2d 662, 667 (Tex. 1968)” for the proposition that railroads may presume motorists will obey traffic laws. Judge Ganjei described the search the court ran before raising the issue: the case name and reporter information produced nothing in Westlaw or LexisNexis, and the case does not appear in the South Western Reporter. From that, the court said it had “reason to believe that this case does not exist.” It did not make a finding that the case was fabricated.
The directive that followed is narrow. Union Pacific was ordered to produce the opinion by June 29, 2026 with “a brief statement regarding the search engine or other tool(s) its counsel used to locate the opinion,” and the court added that if counsel used artificial intelligence in their research, “they should explicitly state such.” The order does not mention Rule 11 or any other sanctions authority and does not set a hearing. The motion to dismiss itself was denied on grounds unrelated to the citation.
As of the last docket entry read, a filing was docketed on the deadline but is not publicly available, and the court had not addressed the citation further. Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that, in this case, the court’s first step was a request for the research trail behind one citation, with an express question about AI use, rather than an immediate sanction.
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.
- Document the research path for each authority cited. The court's show-cause directive asked Union Pacific for the search engine or other tools its counsel used to locate the opinion.
- Verify older state-reporter citations against the reporter. The court checked Westlaw, LexisNexis, and the printed South Western Reporter before concluding it had reason to believe the case does not exist.
- Consider how a firm would answer a court's direct question about AI use. The order told counsel that if they used artificial intelligence in their research, they should explicitly state it.
Sources
Primary sources
- AI attribution is a Charlotin tracker inference. The order asks whether AI was used but makes no finding that it was.
- ECF No. 29 (June 29, 2026, the response deadline) is docketed only as 'Document' with no filer shown; it may be Union Pacific's response, but its content, whether it produced the case, and whether counsel reported AI use are unknown. The court may act on it later; no ruling appears on the docket as read on 2026-09-30.