Dotson v. Bob Evans Farms, LLC
U.S. District Court, Central District of California · C.D. Cal. · California bar guidance
Conduct
An ex parte application three times attributed quoted language to Mission Power that appears instead in a different case the application never cited.
Consequence
Here the court denied the application and set an order to show cause re monetary sanctions and State Bar referral of counsel Todd M. Friedman.
Lesson
Here the court treated a real case with misattributed quotations as bearing the hallmarks of AI hallucination and required a sworn account of AI use.
Verified September 30, 2026
- Citation
- Dotson v. Bob Evans Farms, LLC, No. 2:25-cv-11993-MWC-DSR, Civil Minutes: Order Denying Plaintiff's Ex Parte Application for Reconsideration and Issuing Order to Show Cause (C.D. Cal. Aug. 20, 2026) (Court, J.), ECF No. 46
- Filing date
- August 20, 2026
Summary
In a putative class action by Michael Dotson against Bob Evans Farms, LLC, the court denied a stipulation to extend the August 26, 2026 class certification deadline, and plaintiff filed an ex parte application for reconsideration, which he represented was unopposed, supported by a declaration of his counsel, Todd M. Friedman. The application attributed quoted language to Mission Power Engineering Co. v. Continental Casualty Co., 883 F. Supp. 488 (C.D. Cal. 1995), at three points. District Judge Michelle Williams Court found that "[a]t three different points in his Application, Plaintiff attributes quoted language to Mission Power, 883 F. Supp. at 492, which appears nowhere in the body of the cited case," and that the language instead appears in Horne v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 969 F. Supp. 2d 1203, 1205 (C.D. Cal. 2013), which the application did not cite. The court wrote that the discrepancies "are so significant as to abrogate any assumption that the misattributions are the result of typographical error," and that the repeated misattributed quotations "bear the hallmarks of hallucinated cases created by artificial intelligence ('AI') tools," quoting an E.D. Cal. decision.
- AI tool:
- Unidentified (the court said the misattributed quotations "bear the hallmarks of hallucinated cases created by artificial intelligence" and ordered counsel to declare whether generative AI was used; no tool named)
- Amount or terms:
- None imposed in this order; order to show cause re monetary sanctions and State Bar referral of Todd M. Friedman set for August 28, 2026
What is the current procedural posture?
The court denied the application, finding that plaintiff had not shown diligence in pursuing class certification discovery or in seeking to amend the schedule. It set an "ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE Re: Monetary Sanctions and State Bar Referral of Todd M. Friedman for breach of the duty of candor to the Court," to be heard in person on August 28, 2026, and ordered Friedman to file a response by August 24, 2026, with a declaration addressing "whether generative artificial intelligence was used to draft Plaintiff's Application or any other papers filed by Plaintiff, and what actions Plaintiff took to determine that the propositions of law relied on by Plaintiff were accurate." The CourtListener docket, read on 2026-09-30, lists later entries whose text was not available: a declaration (ECF No. 47, Aug. 21), a response (ECF No. 48, Aug. 24), an entry categorized as dismissal of the case (ECF No. 49, Aug. 26), and an order terminating the civil case (ECF No. 50, Aug. 27). Whether the show-cause order was discharged, resolved, or mooted is not known from the sources read.
Why does Dotson v. Bob Evans Farms, LLC matter for law firms using AI?
Dotson is an order to show cause issued alongside a routine scheduling ruling. The court denied an ex parte request, represented as unopposed, to extend the class certification deadline, finding the plaintiff had not shown the diligence Mission Power and Rule 16 require. In the same order it turned to the application’s reliance on Mission Power itself: three passages quoted language as coming from page 492 of that decision, and the court found the language instead in Horne v. Wells Fargo Bank, a 2013 C.D. Cal. opinion the application did not cite.
The court’s AI analysis rests on the nature of the error rather than on any admission. It reasoned that the discrepancies were too significant to be typographical, and adopted the E.D. Cal. description of such errors as bearing “the hallmarks of hallucinated cases created by artificial intelligence (‘AI’) tools,” noting that Mata v. Avianca also involved cases with “correct names and citations” that “do not contain the language quoted.” The order framed the potential violation as a “breach of the duty of candor to the Court” and named counsel individually as the subject of both potential monetary sanctions and a State Bar referral.
The order required counsel’s declaration to address whether generative AI was used on the application “or any other papers filed by Plaintiff,” extending the inquiry beyond the single filing. The docket lists a declaration and a response filed after the order, then an entry categorized as a dismissal and an order terminating the case, both dated before the scheduled hearing; the text of those entries was not available, so the entry remains marked pending. Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that in this case the declaration the court required had to address AI use in every paper filed for the plaintiff, not only the application containing the misattributed quotations.
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 quoted language against the cited page, even for a standard case. Here the quotations attributed to Mission Power came from a different C.D. Cal. decision.
- Document what steps were taken to confirm the law cited in a filing. The court here ordered counsel's declaration to address both AI use and the actions taken to confirm the propositions of law.
- Review ex parte and emergency filings with the same citation checks as noticed motions. The defective quotations here appeared in an ex parte application filed under deadline pressure.
Sources
Primary sources
- That AI produced the misattributed quotations: the court said they 'bear the hallmarks' of AI hallucination and ordered a declaration on AI use; there is no admission or finding naming a tool in this order.
- Disposition of the show-cause order: ECF Nos. 47 to 50 (declaration, response, dismissal, and order terminating the case, Aug. 21 to Aug. 27, 2026) are listed on the CourtListener docket but their text is not in the RECAP archive; ECF No. 50 returned 'not yet in the RECAP collection.' The entry stays pending until the outcome is confirmed.