Appeal of PDO Ahuska Joint Venture LLC
Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals · ASBCA
Conduct
Here a pro se contractor's summary judgment motion cited five Board decisions; four were fictitious and appeared to be AI hallucinations.
Consequence
Here the Board struck the fictitious citations and the contentions they supported, then granted the contractor's motion on the merits anyway.
Lesson
Here withdrawing the fake citations without withdrawing the arguments built on them did not cure the prejudice.
Verified September 28, 2026
- Citation
- Appeal of PDO Ahuska Joint Venture LLC, ASBCA No. 64164 (July 13, 2026) (Sweet, A.J.)
- Decided
- July 13, 2026
Summary
PDO Ahuska Joint Venture LLC, appearing pro se through its executive program manager, appealed under an Army contract for a replacement roof system at the Detroit Arsenal and moved for partial summary judgment that the contract did not require it to provide a 120 mph wind speed roof membrane warranty. The government cross-moved and sought sanctions on the ground that all of the cases cited in Ahuska's motion were fictitious and apparently generative AI hallucinations. The Board found four of the five cited decisions fictitious: Lockheed Martin Corp., ASBCA No. 57525, 13-1 BCA 35,241 (that paragraph is a Raytheon Missile Systems jurisdiction decision); Metric Constructors, Inc., ASBCA No. 50843, 99-1 BCA 30,134 (a Bean Horizon-Weeks Marine decision); Blinderman Constr. Co., ASBCA No. 55770, 09-2 BCA 34,257 (a Vibration and Sound Solutions decision, while No. 55770 belongs to an appeal that settled without decision); and J. A. Jones Constr. Co., ASBCA No. 38679, 90-3 BCA 23,241 (a Goetz Demolition decision). The real decisions in the Lockheed Martin and Metric appeals do not support the stated propositions. A fifth citation, to Alliance Roofing, was a miscitation the Board treated as most likely typographical. Within 11 days, Ahuska withdrew the four citations but not the contentions they supported.
- AI tool:
- Unidentified (the Board found each of four citations "is fictitious and appears to be an AI hallucination"; no tool named)
- Sanction amount:
- Non-monetary: the fictitious citations and the contentions they supported struck from appellant's motion for partial summary judgment
What sanction did the court impose?
In an opinion by Administrative Judge James R. Sweet, with Acting Chairman J. Reid Prouty and Vice Chairman Michael N. O'Connell concurring, the Board granted the government's motion for sanctions, looking to Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 for guidance (Globe Construction, ASBCA No. 21365) and applying the Huffman Construction factors. Because four of the five cases cited, or 80 percent, were fictitious, sanctions were appropriate. The government asked only that the fictitious citations and the contentions they supported be struck, and the Board did so, describing this as a less severe sanction than in Huffman. It rejected Ahuska's argument that the errors were unintentional, finding that "the sheer number and magnitude of errors suggests a blatant disregard" of its obligation to ensure cited cases exist, and rejected the no-prejudice argument because of the time the government and Board spent confirming the citations were fictitious and because Ahuska had not withdrawn the unsupported contentions. On the merits, the Board nonetheless granted Ahuska's motion for partial summary judgment and denied the government's cross-motion, holding under contra proferentem that "there is no genuine issue of material fact suggesting that Ahuska had to provide a membrane manufacturer's warranty that covered a 120 mph wind speed."
Why does Appeal of PDO Ahuska Joint Venture LLC matter for law firms using AI?
The ASBCA opinion shows a tribunal separating the citation sanction from the merits. The Board struck four fictitious citations and the contentions that relied on them from the contractor’s summary judgment motion, and then granted that same motion, finding the contract latently ambiguous on the warranty requirement and construing it against the government under contra proferentem. For each defective citation, the Board identified the unrelated decision actually printed at the cited BCA paragraph and, where the named appeal exists, explained that its real decision does not support the stated proposition.
The Board applied its Huffman Construction framework, which borrows Rule 11 standards and considers willfulness, prejudice, burden, and compliance with Board orders. It noted that a party’s pro se status “does not entirely exclude that litigant from Rule 11” but “may impact the type of sanctions a tribunal imposes,” and chose the narrower remedy the government requested. The Board also pointed to the caution on its home page “that AI tools may generate inaccurate legal analysis and that any party using such tools in preparing filings before the Board remains responsible for independently verifying their accuracy and may be subject to sanctions for resulting errors.”
The withdrawal point is instructive. Ahuska withdrew the four citations within 11 days of the government’s motion, but kept the arguments they had supported, and the Board held that this did not eliminate the prejudice, citing Rule 11(c)(2). Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that, when a citation is withdrawn, the proposition it supported may need to be withdrawn or re-supported as well.
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 Rule 11(c)(2)-style withdrawal obligations when a citation is challenged. The Board held that withdrawing fictitious citations while keeping the unsupported contentions did not eliminate the prejudice.
- Verify BCA reporter citations against the Board's own published decisions. The Board traced each fictitious citation to the unrelated decision actually printed at that paragraph.
- Document AI-use review for agency tribunal filings. The Board quoted its home-page caution that parties using AI tools remain responsible for verifying accuracy and may be sanctioned.