Eclectic Synergy, LLC v. Seredin

What sanction did the court impose?

The per curiam panel (Levine, Shaw and Lott, JJ.) summarily affirmed the order denying disqualification and referred the matter to The Florida Bar "for appropriate action," closing with "Affirmed; counsel sanctioned with referral to The Florida Bar." The court held that "whether counsel used AI makes no difference to the need for sanctions," that counsel "is responsible for the accuracy of his filings and cannot cast the blame on a paralegal," and that his claimed lack of bad faith "is irrelevant." It treated the misrepresentation of real cases as equally serious, stating that such misleading arguments "are just as egregious as citations to non-existent cases." It also found that filing a discretionary writ petition when the order was appealable as of right showed "a further breach of the duty of competence" under Rule Regulating The Florida Bar 4-1.1, and that the emergency stay request was frivolous under the court's Administrative Order 2014-1. No monetary sanction was imposed.

Why does Eclectic Synergy, LLC v. Seredin matter for law firms using AI?

Eclectic Synergy states plainly that, for sanctions purposes, the source of a bad citation did not matter to the Fourth District. The court’s show-cause order had flagged that the petition “appears AI-generated,” but the opinion declines to resolve the question: “In any event, whether counsel used AI makes no difference to the need for sanctions. The Masek case does not exist in Florida and clearly does not stand for the proposition cited in the petition.” It then collects the governing rules from recent Florida decisions: filings with fictitious authority or that “cite actual cases for inaccurate legal propositions” are sanctionable (quoting the Sixth District’s Hessert), counsel “cannot cast the blame on a paralegal” (citing the Second District’s Rangel), and lack of intent to mislead is no excuse (citing Russell v. Mells). It also quoted its own March 2026 decision in Francois v. Vive Financial: “The submission of fictitious or fabricated case law—whether the product of carelessness, misunderstanding, or reliance on generative artificial-intelligence tools—is sanctionable.” The court added: “This includes citations to cases that do not stand for what is argued.”

The candor finding is what distinguishes the case. Counsel’s show-cause response argued that the citation was a “transcription error” in which an Ohio decision “was inadvertently assigned the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal.” The court did its own cite-checking and found that the Ohio case had been overruled and was, in any event, an arbitration-confirmation decision “wholly irrelevant to this proceeding.” It called the explanation “not credible” and a further lack of candor under Rule 4-3.3(a)(1). Counsel’s attempt to point to “three verified decisions” in a Notice of Supplemental Authority backfired: the court held the notice improperly added argument and pre-existing cases, and that it relied on Bistline v. Rogers, a case that “concerned the statutory requirements for pleading a claim for punitive damages and has nothing to do with this case.”

The opinion also takes a firm line on misdescribed real cases. In a footnote discussing citations offered without pinpoints for propositions the cases do not contain, the court wrote that “this misconduct may be even more harmful than an easily identifiable citation to a non-existent case,” because courts and opponents must read the cases to find that the support is missing. Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider whether their citation review checks what each cited case holds, not only that it exists. The Fourth District’s August 2026 JMOR Properties order cites this decision for the rule that citing actual cases for inaccurate legal propositions is sanctionable.