Patterson v. Nuvision Credit Union
California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Two · Cal. Ct. App. · California bar guidance
Conduct
Self-represented appellant filed a brief with seven nonexistent cases and four fabricated quotations; a helper who is not currently an attorney and her own AI use were both possible sources.
Consequence
$500 sanction (execution suspended) and a State Bar referral to investigate whether her brief-writing for other litigants is unauthorized practice of law.
Lesson
Admitting only part of the problem did not discharge the order to show cause; the unaddressed fabricated quotations sustained the sanction.
Verified September 28, 2026
- Citation
- Patterson v. Nuvision Credit Union, No. E085327 (Cal. Ct. App. 4th Dist. Div. 2 July 2, 2026) (nonpub. opn.)
- Decided
- July 2, 2026
Summary
Self-represented appellant Trina R. Patterson appealed after the Riverside County Superior Court sustained without leave to amend a demurrer to her petition seeking return of a repossessed truck, based on "notice of conditional acceptance" letters she argued had discharged her loan. The court's order to show cause identified seven cases in her opening brief that appear not to exist, including Hagood v. Sony Corp. of America (7th Cir. 1988) and Rappaport v. Gelfand (1961), and four quotations attributed to real cases (People v. Superior Court (Romero), United States v. Tweel, Strong v. County of Santa Cruz, and Lake v. Reed) that do not appear in them. The court's summary of the show-cause hearing records that an unidentified person who is not currently an attorney helped prepare the brief and may have relied on generative AI, and that Patterson used an unspecified form of AI in drafting it; she said the errors "could have been a combination of both" and that she was not aware that "ghost caselaw was even a thing." She told the court: "I did not check those cases. Those seven cases." Her written response said that "[f]or over 16 years" she had assisted in preparing appellate briefs as a self-represented litigant and for other self-represented litigants.
- AI tool:
- Unspecified AI (the court's summary of the show-cause hearing records that the self-represented appellant used an unspecified form of AI in drafting the brief and that a helper who is not currently an attorney may have relied on generative AI; tool not identified)
- Sanction amount:
- $500 sanction under Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.276(a)(4), execution suspended; opinion forwarded to the State Bar to investigate possible unauthorized practice of law by the appellant
What sanction did the court impose?
After the parties settled, the court dismissed the appeal but issued an opinion "for the purpose of providing context for the ruling on the order to show cause." It found Patterson "failed to show cause why she should not be sanctioned for relying on fabricated legal authority," because she never addressed the four fabricated quotations, and it found not credible her claim to have learned her lesson, given her post-OSC citations and her inaction on a nearly identical brief in a companion appeal. Holding that she "unreasonably violated rule 8.204(a)(1)(B)," it imposed a $500 sanction and suspended its execution. Because Patterson, who is not an attorney, said she had prepared briefs for other self-represented litigants (asked about the future, she said "[n]ot really," as she was "weaning [herself] out of that"), the court found it "possible that Patterson's practice of preparing appellate briefs for self-represented litigants constitutes practicing law without a license" and directed the clerk to forward the opinion to the State Bar. The opinion is by Justice Menetrez, with Acting Presiding Justice Fields and Justice Raphael concurring.
Why does Patterson v. Nuvision Credit Union matter for law firms using AI?
The opinion exists only because of the order to show cause. The parties settled while the order to show cause was pending, and the court dismissed the appeal under rule 8.244(c)(2), but it issued a full opinion to explain its sanctions ruling. It had already warned Patterson twice through tentative opinions, in this appeal and in her companion appeal against Digital Federal Credit Union, that her briefs bore “the hallmarks of fabricated legal authority created by generative artificial intelligence (AI).”
The sanction turned on what Patterson did not say. She admitted not checking seven nonexistent cases and apologized, but “did not acknowledge those fabricated quotations at all,” and did not answer whether she had checked any other citation. The court also pointed to her conduct after the show-cause order: in her motion for leave to file a late response, two of three cited cases “have nothing to do with the propositions for which they were cited.” It concluded that the order to show cause “has not changed Patterson’s behavior in the way that she claims it did.”
The State Bar referral is the more consequential part. Patterson is not an attorney, but she told the court in writing that she had assisted in preparing appellate briefs for herself and for other self-represented litigants “[f]or over 16 years” (at the hearing she referred to her “previous 15 years of writing briefs”) and said she believed they could hire her to do so. The court referred the matter to the State Bar, citing Business and Professions Code section 6125. Less than two months later, the same court sanctioned another pair of self-represented appellants whose brief, the court credited, Patterson had drafted for pay, in Varma v. The Bank of New York Mellon.
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.
- Review filings by self-represented opponents for signs of a nonlawyer drafter; this court referred a brief-writer who served other self-represented litigants to the State Bar.
- Document a response to any order to show cause that addresses every category of error the court identified. The court sanctioned Patterson in part because she addressed the nonexistent cases but not the fabricated quotations.
- Consider that an appellate court may still rule on a pending order to show cause after the parties settle and the appeal is dismissed, as this court did.