Marquez v. Dreiling
U.S. District Court, District of Kansas · D. Kan. · Kansas bar guidance
Conduct
A represented plaintiff's brief quoted a D. Kan. opinion for language the court found is not in that opinion.
Consequence
Here the court said it would typically issue a show-cause order under its AI standing order, but declined because the plaintiff is now pro se; no sanction.
Lesson
In this case the court tied a single false quote to its AI standing order even without any finding of AI use.
Verified September 29, 2026
- Citation
- Marquez v. Dreiling, No. 25-2547-JWB, Memorandum and Order (D. Kan. June 29, 2026) (Broomes, C.J.), ECF No. 95
- Decided
- June 29, 2026
Summary
Cesar Marquez sued Grant Dreiling and others after Dreiling suspended him from Shawnee Mission School District cross-country events and issued a district-wide no-trespass order following incidents at his son's meet. Opposing Dreiling's motion to dismiss on qualified immunity grounds, Marquez's brief, filed while he was represented by counsel, quoted Schmidt v. Huff, No. 25-CV-2081-EFM-GEB, 2025 WL 2374153 (D. Kan. Aug. 14, 2025), for the proposition that "The mere fact that [a parent] must obtain permission when other similarly situated members of the public do not is a deprivation of liberty. Defendants cannot strip Plaintiff's rights down to privileges without just cause," attributing the quote to page *8 of the opinion. Chief Judge John W. Broomes found that "[t]his quote is not contained in the Schmidt opinion," and added that the plaintiff in Schmidt did not assert a substantive due process claim. By the time of the ruling Marquez was proceeding pro se.
- AI tool:
- Unidentified (the order flags a quotation not found in the cited opinion but does not attribute it to AI or name a tool)
How did the court address the AI-related conduct?
In a footnote, the court stated that it would "[t]ypically" require the plaintiff to show cause why he should not be sanctioned for including a false quote in his brief, citing D. Kan. Standing Order 26-01. Because Marquez was represented by counsel when the brief was filed and is now proceeding pro se, the court declined to enter a show-cause order. No sanction was imposed on Marquez or his former counsel. On the merits, the court granted Dreiling's motion to dismiss, holding him entitled to qualified immunity on the First Amendment and procedural and substantive due process claims and finding the class-of-one equal protection claim inadequately pleaded. It denied Marquez's later motion for leave to file a supplemental brief about a revised district complaint policy.
Why does Marquez v. Dreiling matter for law firms using AI?
The AI dimension of Marquez is a single footnote. Chief Judge Broomes checked a quotation the plaintiff’s opposition brief attributed to Schmidt v. Huff, another District of Kansas decision, and found the language was not in the opinion. He then noted that the court would typically require a show-cause response for a false quote, pointing to the district’s Standing Order 26-01 on the use of artificial intelligence in preparing court filings.
The court did not follow that course here. Marquez had been represented by counsel when the brief was filed but was proceeding pro se when the court ruled, and the court declined to enter a show-cause order on that basis. The order does not say whether AI was used, and it does not name the attorney who filed the brief.
On the merits, the motion to dismiss was granted on qualified immunity grounds for the First Amendment and due process claims, and the equal protection claim failed for lack of allegations about similarly situated comparators. The misquoted Schmidt opinion was also, in the court’s view, factually unlike this case.
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 that every quotation appears in the cited opinion at the cited page. Here the court checked the quoted language against Schmidt and found it absent.
- Review the district's AI standing order before filing. The court referred to D. Kan. Standing Order 26-01 as the basis on which it would typically require a show-cause response for a false quote.
- Document who drafted and signed each brief. The court's stated reason for not issuing a show-cause order was that counsel filed the brief and the plaintiff now proceeds pro se.
Sources
Primary sources
- AI attribution: the order does not mention artificial intelligence. It identifies one quotation missing from the cited opinion and refers to the court's AI standing order only as the basis on which a show-cause order would typically issue. The tracker's AI coding is a Charlotin inference.
- The order does not name the counsel who filed the opposition brief (Doc. 19); counsel's identity was not researched.