Virgil v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc., et al.
U.S. District Court, Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division · S.D. Ind. · Indiana bar guidance
Conduct
Counsel filed five briefs with eleven nonexistent citations, one after being put on notice, and affixed co-counsel's signature without permission.
Consequence
$10,000 personal Rule 11 sanction adopted by the district court; referral to the Indiana Attorney Disciplinary Commission.
Lesson
Whether fake citations come from AI or copy-pasted old work product, the Rule 11 duty to verify is the same.
Verified September 28, 2026
- Citation
- Virgil v. Experian Info. Sols. Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01641-MPB-MJD, Order Adopting Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation (S.D. Ind. Sept. 11, 2026), ECF No. 447; Report and Recommendation (S.D. Ind. Feb. 12, 2026) (Dinsmore, M.J.), ECF No. 395
- Decided
- September 11, 2026
Summary
Plaintiff's counsel James Policchio filed five briefs containing a total of eleven nonexistent and four inaccurate citations, including Myers v. Passport Health, 2013 WL 5819270 (S.D. Ind. Oct. 29, 2013) and Schuh v. American Express Bank, FSB, 2019 WL 132741 (N.D. Ind. Jan. 8, 2019); the last of the five was filed seven days after defendants RentGrow Inc. and Yardi Systems, Inc. raised the problem. Magistrate Judge Mark J. Dinsmore issued a Rule 11(c)(3) show-cause order. Policchio explained that he had terminated his LexisNexis account and built the filings by "cutting and pasting" from documents he had saved in a case management program from a prior case, and did not attribute the errors to generative AI. Co-counsel Kyle Schumacher's signature had been affixed to the briefs by Policchio without Schumacher's review or permission.
- AI tool:
- Not admitted or found (counsel attributed the errors to cutting and pasting from prior-case documents; the district court said it is difficult to see how that accounts for errors that are often "hallmarks of AI hallucinations" and held the source irrelevant)
- Sanction amount:
- $10,000 personal Rule 11 sanction against attorney James Policchio, payable to the Clerk within 30 days; matter referred to the Indiana Attorney Disciplinary Commission
What sanction did the court impose?
On February 12, 2026, Magistrate Judge Dinsmore recommended a $10,000 Rule 11 sanction against Policchio personally, recommended no sanction against Schumacher, and referred the matter to Chief Judge James R. Sweeney II under Local Rule of Disciplinary Enforcement 2(a); the Chief Judge referred it to the Indiana Attorney Disciplinary Commission on February 17, 2026. Policchio filed no objection. On September 11, 2026 the district court, finding no clear error, adopted the recommendation and ordered Policchio to pay $10,000 to the Clerk of Court within thirty days of service.
Why does Virgil v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc., et al. matter for law firms using AI?
Virgil is notable for two reasons that managing partners should track. First, the court declined to make AI the question. Policchio “did not cite generative AI use when explaining his conduct,” and the court observed that it is hard to see how his cut-and-paste explanation accounts for nonexistent citations that are often “hallmarks of AI hallucinations,” but held that “whether his practice is aided through generative AI or not, Policchio alone is responsible for ensuring his compliance with Rule 11 and professional obligations.” Failure to verify a citation’s accuracy, “let alone the case’s existence, is objectively unreasonable.”
Second, the $10,000 figure was framed as an escalation. In his recommendation, the magistrate judge noted that he had faced the issue twice in the prior year: in HoosierVac, he recommended $15,000 and the district judge reduced it to $6,000; in Davis, he recommended $7,500 (the district court later imposed $2,000). Given “the distressing number of cases calling out this conduct,” he concluded that “the imposition of modest sanctions has failed to act as a deterrent” and that no lesser sanction would serve the deterrent purpose. In adopting the recommendation, the district court added its own reason: the pervasiveness of the violations, “five separate briefs spanning a two-month period with one filed after his problematic citations were reported,” made this case “more egregious than some other recent cases involving fabricated or hallucinated case citations.”
Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that citations carried forward from earlier work product, particularly after a citator subscription is cancelled, call for the same verification as AI-generated text.
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 citations carried over from prior work product. Counsel's explanation was cut-and-paste from an earlier case after cancelling his research subscription, and the court held the source of the errors irrelevant.
- Review signature authority. Counsel affixed co-counsel's signature to briefs co-counsel never saw; the court sanctioned only the attorney who did so.
- Document an escalation step after opposing counsel flags a citation: the last defective brief here was filed seven days after the defendants raised the problem, which the court treated as aggravating.
Sources
Primary sources
Further reading
Source PDF is a Westlaw printout mirrored from the Damien Charlotin hallucination database. We are working to add the underlying court docket (PACER, CourtListener, or court website) as a second source.