← All AI hallucination cases

Oregon Court of Appeals · Or. Ct. App. · Decided March 18, 2026

Citation:

Doiban v. Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, 347 Or App 742 (Mar. 18, 2026) (Shorr, P.J.)

AI tool:

Google and Safari AI-generated search summaries (not a dedicated legal AI tool)

Sanction amount:

$10,000

What happened

Petitioner's counsel William L. Ghiorso filed an opening brief in November 2024 containing at least 15 fabricated case citations and at least 9 purported quotations that do not exist anywhere in Oregon case law, plus multiple inaccurate descriptions of the propositions for which real cases stand (e.g., describing Union Lumber Co. v. Miller, 360 Or 767 (2017), a Rule 71 B(1) motion to set aside a judgment in a breach of contract case, as a 'seminal decision' establishing a framework for relief from default in administrative proceedings; and citing a fabricated 'Walling v. Walling, 370 Or 56, 425 P3d 468 (2019)' as the 'Oregon Supreme Court's landmark decision' on default judgments). Counsel represented that his office had a policy against using AI to draft documents but allowed AI for outlines; AI was used to outline arguments, then staff used Westlaw and Lexis, and after finding limited cases on point, turned to Google and Safari search engines, copying citations from sources that 'discussed Oregon case law using legal citation format and legal terminology' without verifying them in Westlaw or Lexis. Counsel reported that 'if one asks Google's search engine whether many of the fabricated cases are real, it will generate a response using its artificial intelligence search engine, affirming that the fabricated case[s] are in fact real.' Respondent's counsel flagged the fabricated citations in an April 3, 2025 email and in the April 16, 2025 answering brief, but petitioner's counsel did not respond, did not address the issue in the reply brief, and did not seek to correct the citations for seven months until in-person questioning at oral argument on November 6, 2025.

Outcome

The Oregon Court of Appeals (Shorr, P.J., joined by Powers and O'Connor, JJ.) directed petitioner's counsel to pay $10,000 to the Appellate Court Services Division of the Oregon Judicial Department. Applying the Ringo v. Colquhoun Design Studio, LLC, 345 Or App 301 (2025) tariff ($500 per fabricated citation, $1,000 per fabricated quotation) would have yielded a minimum of $16,500, but the court capped the sanction at $10,000 because (1) counsel's response was due and filed before Ringo issued, (2) counsel provided a detailed explanation of how the fabrications occurred, and (3) counsel acknowledged the need for and reportedly implemented new office procedures. The court permitted petitioner to file a redacted replacement brief within 21 days, relying only on the five real cases remaining and revising the substance to accurately describe their holdings, with a Ringo-style certification on AI use. The court held that submitting unverified citations breaches duties of professionalism, truthfulness, and candor regardless of whether AI is involved, and that a signing attorney certifies citation accuracy under ORCP 17 C(3).

Doiban is Oregon’s record sanction at the Court of Appeals level. It established that Google search is an inadequate substitute for legal-database verification, because Google’s AI-generated summaries can affirmatively confirm the existence of fabricated cases. The case underscores that delegating research to paralegals does not relieve the supervising attorney of verification responsibility, and that an existing anti-AI policy provides no defense when actual verification fails to occur.

Primary sources

• https://www.courts.oregon.gov/publications/coa/Pages/default.aspx

Last verified: April 24, 2026. Verify against primary sources before relying on this in a filing.