Martin v. ODS Community Dental Insurance
U.S. District Court, District of Oregon · D. Or. · Oregon bar guidance
Conduct
Pro se TRO motion contained fabricated quote attributed to Zschernig v. Miller and unsupported citations embedded in rhymed verse.
Consequence
TRO denied on merits; explicit on-record warning that further AI-generated inaccurate citations will not be tolerated.
Lesson
District judges flag generative-AI use even when the threshold defect is something else (here, the TRO nexus failure).
Verified May 7, 2026
- Citation
- Martin v. ODS Cmty. Dental Ins., No. 3:26-cv-00298-AB (D. Or. Feb. 18, 2026) (Baggio, J.)
- Decided
- February 18, 2026
Summary
Pro se plaintiff David Martin filed an emergency ex parte motion for a temporary restraining order against ODS Community Dental Insurance, Oregon Health Authority, CareOregon, and Skyline Oral and Dental, seeking a court-ordered emergency oral surgery within 24 hours and full coverage of related medical costs. The TRO motion raised First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment claims that did not appear in the underlying complaint, and named two defendants who were not parties to the complaint at all. District Judge Amy M. Baggio identified that Martin's brief contained inaccurate or incomplete citations to caselaw, including a citation to Zschernig v. Miller, 389 U.S. 429, 432 (1968) for "a quote that does not exist on the cited page or anywhere else in the case," and citations to Hartman v. Moore, Estelle v. Gamble, and Washington v. Glucksberg embedded "within rhymed verse" without full citations supporting the proposition asserted. The court explicitly attributed the pattern to possible generative-AI use.
- AI tool:
- Generative AI (specific product not identified by court; "generative artificial intelligence" referenced in the order)
What sanction did the court impose?
TRO motion denied for failure to establish likelihood of success on the merits (the only Winter element addressed in the opinion; irreparable-harm concerns were noted in a footnote but not the basis for denial). The court issued an explicit warning: "To the extent that Plaintiff is using generative artificial intelligence to aid him in his briefing, Plaintiff is warned that the Court will not tolerate further inaccurate or incomplete citations to legal authority." No monetary sanction imposed.
Why does Martin v. ODS Community Dental Insurance matter for law firms using AI?
Martin v. ODS is a useful “warning-only” Oregon entry from the same February 18, 2026 day as Russo’s Jones v. Target Findings and Recommendation, but with a different judge (District Judge Amy M. Baggio) and a different procedural posture (emergency TRO denial rather than discovery-misconduct dismissal). The two opinions issuing on the same day are an interesting marker of the District of Oregon’s coordinated handling of AI-citation issues across chambers in early 2026, though the pairing appears to be coincidence rather than coordination: the procedural triggers were different (a contested TRO and a contested terminating-sanctions motion), and the magistrate-judge versus district-judge designations are different.
For firms practicing in D. Or., the Martin opinion is most useful as a concrete example of the warning-only disposition. Judge Baggio could have denied the TRO solely on the Pacific Radiation Oncology nexus ground (claims pled in the motion were not pled in the complaint), and the AI-citation footnote would have been gratuitous. The decision to include the warning anyway, and to flag specific structural anomalies (the Zschernig quote not appearing in the cited case, citations embedded in rhymed verse), tells later litigants that D. Or. judges will memorialize AI-conduct concerns even when the dispositive issue is something else. Defense counsel responding to emergency motions should consider raising AI-citation flags directly in opposition rather than waiting for the court to identify them; the Martin order shows judges will receive that argument and weave it into the published opinion.
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.
- When a brief contains citations to Supreme Court cases for quotes that cannot be found in the cited cases, defense counsel should affirmatively call out generative-AI use in opposition; D. Or. judges will incorporate the AI flag into the order if invited.
- Citations embedded in unusual structural formats (rhymed verse, lists of case names without parentheticals or pin cites) are a generative-AI tell that opposing counsel should highlight, particularly in emergency-motion contexts where the court is reading on a compressed timeline.
- When seeking emergency relief in D. Or., ensure that every legal theory advanced in the motion is also pled in the operative complaint; even apart from AI-citation issues, Pacific Radiation Oncology v. Queen's Medical Center makes the nexus failure a per se denial ground.
Sources
Primary 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.