Hocog v. Cook-Huynh
Superior Court of Guam · Guam Super. Ct.
Verified May 14, 2026
- Citation
- Hocog v. Cook-Huynh, Civil Case No. CV0140-25 (Guam Super. Ct. Aug. 11, 2025) (Iriarte, J.)
- Decided
- August 11, 2025
Summary
Plaintiffs' counsel Mark S. Smith, Esq., filed an Opposition to a motion to dismiss in a medical malpractice case that contained, by Judge Elyze M. Iriarte's count, "no less than eleven erroneous citations." The Court itemized at least three citations to incorrect statutes or cases, six fabricated quotations that did not appear in the cases cited, three misstatements of statutes or holdings, and one citation to a nonexistent statutory provision (7 GCA section 10105). Cited authorities included a vacated California decision Smith failed to flag, parallel-citation pin cites pointing to unrelated Hawaii and Guam criminal cases, and a Second Circuit decision (Penthouse Int'l v. Playboy) misrepresented as supporting apparent-authority estoppel. The Court granted the motion to dismiss on improper service grounds and treated the citation pattern as a competence and diligence problem under Guam Rules of Professional Conduct 1.1 and 1.3.
- AI tool:
- Unspecified generative AI
What sanction did the court impose?
Motion to dismiss granted on independent service-of-process grounds, dismissing Dr. Cook-Huynh from the action and effectively ending the Hocogs' malpractice claims given the expired one-year statute of limitations under 7 GCA section 11308. As to Attorney Smith, the Court issued a formal warning under Guam R. Prof'l Conduct 1.1 and 1.3 and stated it "is in the process of reviewing Attorney Smith's misconduct in his Opposition and will take appropriate measures in a separate Order or proceeding." No monetary sanction was imposed in this order.
Why does Hocog v. Cook-Huynh matter for law firms using AI?
Hocog is a useful counterpoint to the federal Rule 11 cases dominating the AI-sanctions docket: a U.S. territorial court, no monetary sanction in the four corners of the order, and an AI tool that the judge declined to name. For a managing partner, the relevant signal is that the citation-integrity inquiry is now a standard appellate-style audit any judge can run, regardless of jurisdiction or whether AI is mentioned. Eleven defective citations in a single opposition brief, including a vacated California case cited without noting the vacatur and a pin cite that landed in an unrelated Hawaii criminal decision, were enough for the Court to flag a Rule 1.1 and 1.3 problem and reserve formal discipline for a follow-on proceeding.
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.
- Any follow-on disciplinary order referenced by the Court in footnote-equivalent language ("separate Order or proceeding") had not been located on the Guam judiciary site as of the verification date.