Villasenor v. Ralphs Grocery Company

How did the court address the AI-related conduct?

In an October 28, 2025 ruling on the motion, which it had taken under submission at the September 10, 2025 hearing, Judge Michael B. Wilson granted summary adjudication for Ralphs on seven causes of action (wrongful termination in violation of public policy, the four FEHA claims, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress) and denied it on assault and on negligent supervision and retention. On the FEHA claims the court held that Ralphs had no actual or constructive notice of the alleged disability and that the plaintiff had not shown the stated reason for his termination, the altercations, to be pretextual. On assault and negligent supervision and retention it found triable issues arising from a store manager's failure to report the first altercation to Ralphs's labor relations department. The court's only treatment of the Bilo citation is the sentence recording that, as Ralphs pointed out in its reply, the case does not exist. The ruling imposes no sanction, issues no admonishment or warning, orders no explanation, and makes no referral.

Why does Villasenor v. Ralphs Grocery Company matter for law firms using AI?

Villasenor is an employment case in which the nonexistent citation drew a single sentence. The plaintiff, who said he had an undiagnosed mental disability affecting communication and routine, argued that Ralphs should be charged with knowing about it from coworkers’ and managers’ observations. To support that theory his opposition cited “Bilo v. Dept. of Defense (D. Haw. 2010) 720 F. Supp. 2d 1267.” Judge Wilson wrote: “As pointed out by Defendant in its reply, this case does not exist.”

The court then dealt with the real cases the plaintiff cited on the merits. It accepted that Faust v. California Portland Cement Co. states the standard the plaintiff relied on, but found Faust distinguishable because the plaintiff there had provided a medical provider’s request for a leave of absence; it found Taylor v. Phoenixville School Dist. distinguishable because the employee there had been hospitalized and had given the employer medical notes. The ruling does not mention artificial intelligence, and the Charlotin tracker’s AI coding is an inference the court did not make.

Nothing followed from the citation. The court did not warn or admonish counsel, did not ask for an explanation, and imposed no sanction; it granted Ralphs summary adjudication on most claims and let the assault and negligent supervision claims go forward. Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that a nonexistent citation can be recorded in a written ruling even when the court takes no further step, and that here the problem was surfaced by opposing counsel’s reply.