Offen Petroleum LLC v. L&J Express LLC
U.S. District Court, District of Arizona · D. Ariz. · Arizona bar guidance
Conduct
Here a defendant's motion to dismiss cited a nonexistent case and quoted language the cited cases do not contain, per footnote 1 of the court's order.
Consequence
No sanction. The court wrote "This is your one warning" and noted that failing to confirm citations is a potential ground for Rule 11 sanctions.
Lesson
Here the court flagged the defects in a footnote to a merits ruling and wrote, "This is your one warning."
Verified September 29, 2026
- Citation
- Offen Petroleum LLC v. L&J Express LLC, No. CV-25-00061-TUC-JCH (EJM), Order (D. Ariz. Feb. 4, 2026) (Hinderaker, J.), ECF No. 128
- Decided
- February 4, 2026
Summary
In an order adopting a magistrate judge's Report and Recommendation on three motions to dismiss, District Judge John C. Hinderaker added a footnote about the motion to dismiss filed by Defendant Midnight Sun Logistics, LLC. The court noted that Midnight Sun's motion "cites to a nonexistent case, contains quoted materials that do not appear in the cited cases, and, in more than one instance, includes case citations that do not support the specific explanatory phrase presented alongside the citation." The footnote then states: "This is your one warning." It adds that any counsel's failure to confirm the existence, accuracy, and veracity of a cited case "is a potential ground for sanctions under Rule 11," citing two recent District of Arizona decisions. The order does not mention artificial intelligence, does not name the attorney who filed the motion, and makes no finding under Rule 11.
- AI tool:
- Unidentified (the order flags a nonexistent case and inaccurate quotations but does not attribute them to AI or name a tool)
- Amount or terms:
- None (a one-sentence warning in footnote 1)
What did the court warn about?
No sanction. The court's only response to the citation problems is the footnoted warning. On the merits, the court adopted the Report and Recommendation in full: it denied Midnight Sun's motion to dismiss, granted in part and denied in part the motions of Texas Fueling Services, Inc. and Global Companies LLC (dismissing the negligence claim without prejudice), granted Plaintiff leave to amend the negligence claim, and withdrew the referral to Magistrate Judge Eric J. Markovich.
Why does Offen Petroleum LLC v. L&J Express LLC matter for law firms using AI?
Offen Petroleum shows how little ceremony a court may use when it finds defective authority in a brief. The order’s business was adopting Magistrate Judge Markovich’s Report and Recommendation on three motions to dismiss, to which no party objected. In footnote 1, Judge Hinderaker observed that Midnight Sun Logistics’ motion cited a nonexistent case, contained quotations that do not appear in the cited cases, and paired citations with explanatory phrases the cases do not support. He then wrote, “This is your one warning,” and stated that any counsel’s failure to confirm the existence, accuracy, and veracity of a citation “is a potential ground for sanctions under Rule 11,” citing Mavy v. Commissioner of Social Security Administration and Dodge v. FirstService Residential Arizona LLC.
The footnote went no further. It does not say how the defects arose, does not mention artificial intelligence, does not name the lawyer who signed the motion, and imposes nothing. The defects also did not change the result: the court denied Midnight Sun’s motion on the merits by adopting the Report and Recommendation in full. The tracker’s classification of this matter as an AI case is an inference from the pattern of defects, not a finding in the order.
Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that citation defects in a motion can draw a footnoted warning in a merits order, and that a warning of this kind remains in the case record.
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 cited case and quotation before filing. Here the court's order flagged a nonexistent case and quotations absent from the cited opinions.
- Review a footnote warning as part of the case record. This court's warning, "This is your one warning," sits in an order adopting a Report and Recommendation on motions to dismiss.
- Consider how a warning shapes later filings in the same matter: the court tied its warning to Rule 11 and cited two District of Arizona decisions on unverified citations.
Sources
Primary sources
- AI attribution is a Charlotin tracker inference: the order flags a nonexistent case and inaccurate quotations but does not mention artificial intelligence or name any tool.
- The order does not name the attorney who signed Midnight Sun's motion (Doc. 24), and the entry does not identify one.