Ibach v. Stewart
Supreme Court of Alabama · Ala. Sup. Ct. · Alabama bar guidance
Conduct
Appellate briefs in which most cited authorities were misquoted or nonexistent; the reply brief promised no recurrence and then cited two more fake cases.
Consequence
$17,200 fees and costs, double costs, co-signature requirement for all future filings in the Court, bar referral; appeal dismissed as a sanction.
Lesson
A court may dismiss the client's appeal over counsel's fabricated authority, and new fake citations placed right after a promise that the mistake will not recur weigh heavily.
Verified September 28, 2026
- Citation
- Ibach v. Stewart, No. SC-2025-0106 (Ala. Apr. 24, 2026)
- Decided
- April 24, 2026
Summary
Laurie Ibach and Mark Stewart appealed a Mobile Circuit Court summary judgment in a trust dispute against Bruce Stewart, individually and as trustee. Their counsel, W. Perry Hall, filed an opening brief and a reply brief in which, the Court found, "[m]ost of the legal authorities in the briefs are misquoted or nonexistent." The appellee's brief, which the Court quoted, identified apparently fictitious cases and a purported Nebraska trust decision whose citation belongs to an Iowa criminal case; the Court itself found further nonexistent citations and misquotations of Alabama Supreme Court decisions. In a single footnote of the reply brief, Hall acknowledged that the opening brief misquoted two law-review articles, attributed the error to "counsel's first use of an AI research tool," and promised "[t]he mistake will not recur"; the second and third citations after that promise were to cases that do not exist. At a hearing Hall admitted that many of the authorities in his briefs do not exist and that he improperly used AI to obtain them.
- AI tool:
- Unnamed "AI research tool" (counsel's own description in the reply brief); at a hearing, counsel admitted he improperly used AI to obtain the authorities
- Sanction amount:
- $17,200 in attorney fees and costs to the appellee; double costs of appeal payable to the Court; no further filings in the Supreme Court of Alabama without the co-signature of another attorney in good standing; referral to the Alabama State Bar; appeal dismissed as a sanction
What sanction did the court impose?
The Court (McCool, J.) imposed sanctions under its inherent authority and Rule 38, Ala. R. App. P., after finding the appeal frivolous: Hall must pay $17,200 in attorney fees and costs to Bruce Stewart (the amount Hall had already tendered counts toward it) and double the costs of the appeal payable to the Court; he may not file anything further in the Supreme Court of Alabama unless another attorney in good standing with the Alabama State Bar signs the filing under Rule 25A, Ala. R. App. P.; and he is referred to the Alabama State Bar. The Court granted Hall's motion to withdraw and dismissed the appeal as a sanction. Shaw, Wise, Bryan, and Parker, JJ., concurred; Cook, J., and McCool, J. (joined by Stewart, C.J.), concurred specially; Sellers and Mendheim, JJ., concurred in part and dissented in part.
Why does Ibach v. Stewart matter for law firms using AI?
In Ibach v. Stewart the Supreme Court of Alabama reached for nearly every sanctioning tool it had. Justice McCool’s opinion says the briefs’ citations “appear to be artificial-intelligence (‘AI’) ‘hallucinations,’ i.e., fake authorities created by an AI system,” walks through the fabrications case by case, and concludes that “the improper use of AI in the plaintiffs’ briefs was widespread and particularly egregious.” The Court was careful to locate the problem: “the root of the problem does not lie with AI itself; on the contrary, AI-assisted legal research can sometimes be quite helpful to both practitioners and judges.”
The separate writings map where the Court divided. Justice Cook agreed with the result but would have set an end date or condition for the open-ended co-signature requirement, and wrote that sanctions should generally be imposed on the lawyer rather than the client. Justice Sellers would not have dismissed the appeal, stating that he did “not agree that dismissal of the appeal is appropriate as a sanction for the conduct of a lawyer.” Justice Mendheim concurred in the dismissal but questioned whether any Alabama authority permits the Court to require double costs payable to the Court itself, and noted that the Court “has several similar cases before us in which the briefs include AI hallucinations.”
One citation note for Alabama practitioners: the Alabama State Bar’s guidance on AI use, summarized on the Alabama tracker page, cites this case as “No. SC-2024-0678.” The docket number printed on the opinion is SC-2025-0106. Firms citing Ibach in policies or training materials may wish to use the docket number from the opinion itself.
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 every authority in a reply brief that responds to a hallucination challenge. Hall's reply acknowledged an AI error and then cited two more nonexistent cases within the next few citations.
- Consider the client-side exposure. The Court dismissed the appeal as a sanction; Justice Sellers dissented in part on the ground that dismissal punishes the client for the lawyer's conduct, and Justice Cook wrote that sanctions should generally fall on the lawyer.
- Document withdrawal and substitution plans early. The Court noted it would likely have disqualified Hall had he not moved to withdraw; trial counsel who had not signed the appellate briefs remained in the case.