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The sanctions record · U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California, 2026

Gamez v. County of Fresno

No. 1:26-cv-00297-KES-EPG (E.D. Cal.) · order to show cause issued by Grosjean, M.J., 6 April 2026; order discharging the show cause, 9 April 2026

Page verified 5 August 2026. Quotations are from the court’s own order, linked below. The discharge is recorded from the docket and secondary reporting, and we say so.

The one where nothing happened. Same conduct as several of the cases above, nonexistent authority, fabricated quotations, unsupported legal representations, and the court discharged its own show-cause order without imposing a sanction. It is on this record for the same reason Warner v. Gilbarco is: a record you can only trust if it also holds the cases that do not help.

The timeline

  • 14 Jan 2026The County of Fresno removes Elio Gamez’s state civil-rights and negligence suit to the Eastern District of California.
  • 3 Mar 2026Attorney Kevin Little files a brief opposing the County’s motion for a more definite statement (ECF No. 12).
  • 6 Apr 2026Magistrate Judge Erica P. Grosjean issues an order directing Little to show cause why he should not be sanctioned (ECF No. 16).
  • 9 Apr 2026The court discharges the order to show cause and sets a briefing schedule. No sanction is imposed.

What the AI did

“It appears to the Court that Plaintiff’s brief (1) cited authority that does not exist; (2) fabricated quotes from authority that does exist; and (3) made material legal representations without supporting authority. Such issues suggest that Attorney Little relied on generative artificial intelligence (AI) to draft the opposition brief without ensuring that the generated content was accurate or otherwise supported.”

Counsel’s explanation, as reported, was that he had used a paid generative AI tool and believed it carried anti-hallucination protection. The court accepted the explanation as candid and detailed, and discharged the order.

What the court did, and why

The show-cause order is worth reading for its survey of what was already available to the court before it chose not to use any of it. It collected the sanctions the district had previously imposed for fictitious citations, quotations and related misrepresentations:

  • AvailableMonetary sanctions; striking of briefs; requiring written notification to the attorney’s own client; dismissal of the complaint.
  • SourcesThe court’s inherent authority, the Local Rules, the Rules of Professional Conduct and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
  • ImposedNone.

The court cited United States v. Hayes, 763 F. Supp. 3d 1054 (E.D. Cal. 2025), and Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P., 114 Cal. App. 5th 426 (2025), for the proposition that “many courts have confronted briefs populated with fraudulent legal citations resulting from attorneys’ reliance on generative AI.”

What it changed

It sets the floor. Read alongside Fletcher, where evasion raised the penalty, and Fivehouse, where a lack of candour drew a reprimand, Gamez is the control case: identical defects, immediate and detailed candour, no sanction. The variable across the 2026 decisions is not the number of fabricated citations. It is what the lawyer did in the fortnight after the court asked.

One caution before anyone relies on this. A discharged show-cause order is a discretionary act by one magistrate judge, is not precedent, and the same conduct drew $2,500 from a court of appeals eight weeks earlier.

The lesson for the next filing

Every 2026 decision on this record turns on the quality of the answer, and the answer is only as good as what you can show. The belief that a paid tool had anti-hallucination protection was accepted here and would not have survived a harder judge; a record of what you actually checked does not depend on being believed.

Generate the certification →  ·  Read your judge’s AI order →

Sources

Related

Checked 5 August 2026. The show-cause order is quoted from the court’s own document; the discharge is recorded from the docket. Information, not legal advice.

Information, not legal advice. Every entry is verified against the court’s own document or contemporaneous reporting; where a source is reporting rather than the document, we say so.