South Side Area School District v. Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission
Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court · Pa. Commw. Ct. · Pennsylvania bar guidance
Conduct
Petitioners' brief attributed quoted language to Pennsylvania appellate decisions in ten places where the court could not find it in the cited case.
Consequence
Here the court listed the quotation problems in a footnoted order and allowed a letter addressing them; no ruling on consequences has issued.
Lesson
Here the court put the unlocated quotations on the record in writing because oral argument was not transcribed.
Verified September 28, 2026
- Citation
- South Side Area Sch. Dist. v. Pa. Human Relations Comm'n, No. 78 MD 2025 (Pa. Commw. Ct. Jan. 12, 2026) (Wolf, J.) (order granting application for relief)
- Filing date
- December 10, 2025
Summary
Two Pennsylvania school districts (South Side Area and Knoch), three parents, and another individual filed a petition for review in the Commonwealth Court's original jurisdiction on March 6, 2025, seeking declaratory relief against the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission; a claim against the Office of the Governor was discontinued in May 2025. Petitioners are represented by Thomas W. King III and Thomas E. Breth of Dillon, McCandless, King, Coulter & Graham, LLP. On October 17, 2025 petitioners filed a brief opposing the Commission's preliminary objections and supporting their own application for summary relief. The matter was argued to the court en banc on December 10, 2025. In a January 12, 2026 order, Judge Matthew S. Wolf wrote in a footnote that because "oral argument is not transcribed," "the undersigned lists the quotation issues within Petitioners' brief that were brought to attention at the December 2025 en banc session." The footnote table identifies ten passages in the brief, citing authorities including Arsenal Coal, Bayada Nurses, Protz, Popowsky, and Germantown Cab, each marked as language that "could not be located in the cited case."
- AI tool:
- Unidentified (the court's January 12, 2026 order lists quotations that "could not be located in the cited case" and does not mention AI; AI questioning at oral argument is reported only in news coverage)
What is the current procedural posture?
On December 22, 2025, petitioners filed an "Application for Leave to Submit Letter Addressing Issue Raised by Court during Oral Argument." The January 12, 2026 order granted it, directed petitioners to file a letter by February 2, 2026, and allowed the Commission to respond by February 10, 2026. Petitioners filed their letter on February 2 and the Commission filed a response on February 10; petitioners filed a supplemental-authority letter on July 2, 2026. As of September 28, 2026, the docket shows the case as active and awaiting consideration, with no ruling on the preliminary objections, the applications for summary relief, or the quotation issues. The order does not mention AI, sanctions, or a referral, and does not characterize the quotations beyond stating that they could not be located.
Why does South Side Area School District v. Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission matter for law firms using AI?
South Side is an open Commonwealth Court matter in which the court has documented quotation problems in a brief but has not ruled on them. Because the December 10, 2025 en banc argument was not transcribed, Judge Wolf’s January 12, 2026 order sets out, in a footnote table, each passage in petitioners’ brief that was raised at argument: phrases and sentences attributed to cases such as Arsenal Coal, Pittsburgh Palisades Park, Blackwell, Bayada Nurses, Popowsky, Protz, and Germantown Cab that “could not be located in the cited case.”
The order is procedural. It grants petitioners’ request to file a letter addressing the issue and gives the Commission a chance to respond, and both parties did so in February 2026. It does not use the words AI, fabricated, or sanction, and it does not say what consequence, if any, will follow. News coverage of the argument reported that the court raised AI directly, but that exchange is not in the court record reviewed here.
Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that quoted language is a distinct verification step from citation existence: the footnote does not say that any cited case is nonexistent, and the problem it records is language attributed to those cases that the court could not find. The entry will be updated when the court rules.
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 quotation against the cited opinion's text, not only the citation; here each flagged item was quoted language the court could not locate in the cited case.
- Document how problems raised at an untranscribed argument are addressed afterward; here counsel sought leave to file a letter and the court's order memorialized the issues.
- Review briefs for quoted phrases attributed to leading authorities; here the flagged items included Bayada Nurses, Protz, and Arsenal Coal.
Sources
Primary sources
Further reading
- That Judge Wolf asked at oral argument whether the brief contained AI hallucinations, and counsel's reported responses ('incredibly embarrassing,' 'very significant issue'), come from Spotlight PA's courtroom reporting; argument was not transcribed and the court's order does not mention AI.
- The contents of petitioners' February 2, 2026 letter and the Commission's February 10, 2026 response are not public on the docket sheet; whether petitioners attributed the quotations to AI is not verified.
- AI attribution for this entry rests on news reporting and tracker inclusion, not on a court finding.