Nunez v. American Airlines, Inc.

What sanction did the court impose?

The R&R recommended dismissal with prejudice on two grounds: the claims are preempted by the Montreal Convention and amendment would be futile because they are time-barred under its two-year limitations period, and, separately, "as a sanction for Plaintiff's continued willful violations of the Local Rules and for submitting fake caselaw to the Court." On June 9, 2026 (entered June 10; ECF No. 78), District Judge Roy K. Altman overruled Nunez's objections, which addressed only the Montreal Convention analysis, and wrote that he had also reviewed "the rest of Magistrate Judge Reid's R&R for clear error" and, finding none, would "adopt it in full." The order dismissed the complaint with prejudice, stating as its own reason that the claims "are plainly barred under the Convention"; it does not separately discuss the fake citations or the sanction recommendation. No monetary sanction was recommended or imposed. Nunez filed a notice of appeal to the Eleventh Circuit on July 13, 2026 (ECF No. 79); a September 14, 2026 USCA order (ECF No. 83) is not public, and the appeal's scope and status are unknown.

Why does Nunez v. American Airlines, Inc. matter for law firms using AI?

Nunez v. American Airlines is a pro se case in which fake citations formed part of one of two independent grounds a magistrate judge gave for recommending dismissal with prejudice: “willful repeated violations of the Local Rules, paired with his submission of fake caselaw.” She also wrote that the Local Rules violations “warrant dismissal in and of themselves.” Magistrate Judge Reid confirmed through her own search that the two cases Nunez cited against Montreal Convention preemption do not exist, and she rejected his description of them as a formatting error: he had not corrected them, he cited them several times with explanatory parentheticals, and no other case he cited resembled the fake Greene v. American Airlines. Relying on O’Brien v. Flick and Versant Funding, she treated the citations as a serious misrepresentation and paired them with his repeated Local Rules violations, including in an earlier suit Judge Altman had dismissed on that basis.

The district judge’s adoption order is narrower in what it explains. Nunez objected only to the Montreal Convention analysis of Count I. Judge Altman addressed that objected-to analysis on the merits, reviewed the unobjected-to preemption of Counts II through V for clear error, and then adopted the remainder of the R&R, including the sanction recommendation, after finding no clear error. His stated reason for dismissing with prejudice rather than allowing amendment is that the claims are “plainly barred under the Convention.” The sanction ground is therefore part of the adopted R&R but is not the basis the district judge chose to explain.

For firms, the record shows how a court can fold fake-citation findings into a dispositive recommendation rather than a separate sanctions proceeding. Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that here the magistrate judge independently verified the citations, weighed the filer’s explanation against the brief itself, and treated a prior dismissal in the same court as relevant to how seriously to take the conduct.