Hatch v. College Ave Student Loans
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division · N.D. Ill. · Illinois bar guidance
Verified April 26, 2026
- Citation
- Hatch v. College Ave Student Loans, No. 25-cv-05710, 2026 WL 636816 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 6, 2026)
- Decided
- March 6, 2026
Summary
Plaintiff's counsel Heather Bryn Hersh of the Jaffer Law Firm cited potentially nonexistent cases, including Horan v. Equifax Info. Servs., LLC, No. 8:20-cv-02187-PWG, 2022 WL 2190906 (D. Md. June 17, 2022) and Jones v. TransUnion, LLC, No. 1:15-cv-00489, 2015 WL 7566685 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 24, 2015), in her opposition brief and sur-reply opposing Equifax's motion to dismiss FCRA claims. Judge Mary M. Rowland granted the motion to dismiss with prejudice and, in the same order, directed Hersh to show cause why she should not be sanctioned under Rule 11(b)(2), 28 U.S.C. § 1927, and the court's inherent power for citing cases the court could not locate.
- AI tool:
- Unspecified generative AI
What sanction did the court impose?
Order to show cause issued against Attorney Heather Hersh, with a show-cause hearing set for April 9, 2026. Counsel was ordered either to produce true and accurate copies of the cited Horan and Jones decisions by April 3, 2026, or to submit a sworn declaration explaining how the opposition brief and sur-reply were generated and how counsel came to locate the cases.
Why does Hatch v. College Ave Student Loans matter for law firms using AI?
Hatch is a useful illustration for managing partners of how AI-style citation errors surface in routine motion practice, not just headline-grabbing filings. The court paired its Rule 12(b)(6) ruling with an order to show cause directed at plaintiff’s counsel personally, giving her a binary choice: produce the cited authorities or submit a sworn declaration explaining how the brief was drafted. For firms, the practical lesson is that a single uncheckable citation in a routine FCRA opposition brief is enough to put an individual attorney’s conduct, not just the client’s claim, in front of the court.
Sources
Further reading
Source PDF is a Westlaw printout mirrored from the Damien Charlotin hallucination database. We are working to add the underlying court docket (PACER, CourtListener, or court website) as a second source.