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The sanctions record · United States District Court, District of Colorado, 2026

Garcia v. City of Monte Vista

Jimmy Lee Garcia v. City of Monte Vista, Colorado, et al., Civil Action No. 25-cv-0769-WJM-KAS · Order Making Absolute Order to Show Cause and Imposing Rule 11 Sanction, Doc. 126 · Senior District Judge William J. Martínez · dated 29 September 2026

Order read in full, five pages; every quotation is from it or from the court’s order of 29 May 2026. Source: the orders as filed, obtained as PDFs from the AI Hallucination Cases document store.

No fine. A certification on every filing from now on. A motion to dismiss quoted words that do not appear in the Tenth Circuit decision it cited. The court made its order to show cause absolute and found a violation of Rule 11(b), but held that “monetary sanctions are too harsh a sanction” for one erroneous citation. Instead it ordered that, in the future, every filing by the lawyer and his firm carry an AI Certification on the use, or non-use, of generative AI, signed by all individuals who contributed to the drafting. Its sample wording for a filing where AI was used includes a line that the client “was/were advised of and consented to such use.”

The record

  • CourtUnited States District Court, District of Colorado
  • JudgeWilliam J. Martínez, Senior United States District Judge
  • CaseNo. 25-cv-0769-WJM-KAS, a civil action that includes a malicious prosecution claim. The motion was filed for two of the defendants
  • Dated29 September 2026. The order to show cause it makes absolute was entered on 29 May 2026 (ECF No. 101)
  • SanctionedThe Law Office of Troy D. Krenning, LLC and individual counsel Troy D. Krenning
  • The errorOne quotation attributed to Miller v. Spiers, 339 F. App’x 862 (10th Cir. 2009), an unpublished decision, that does not appear in it. “The Court has identified no such quote in Miller.”
  • ToolGenerative AI, not named, used “primarily to help identify potentially relevant cases”. Counsel said the false quotation came from his own notes, not from AI; the court accepted his account
  • AmountNone. The court held monetary sanctions too harsh for one erroneous citation
  • SanctionNonmonetary, under Rule 11: an AI Certification on all future filings by the firm and by Mr. Krenning, signed by every individual who contributed to the drafting
  • WarningFuture infractions may bring harsher sanctions under Rule 11, 28 U.S.C. § 1927 or the court’s inherent authority, including monetary sanctions

What the court found

In its order of 29 May 2026 on the motions to dismiss, the court found that the motion quoted the Tenth Circuit as saying that “the decision to prosecute rests with the prosecutor, not with witnesses or consultants.” It could not find those words in the case. Its footnote 12 said: “This quotation of non-existent language leaves the Court highly suspicious that counsel’s citation to Miller is a product of the un-verified work of generative artificial intelligence. The Court will separately enter an order to show cause on this matter.”

Counsel answered by sworn declaration. He said he had used AI to find cases, reviewed them himself and kept a draft of excerpts and his own notes, and that “language originating from [his] own notes and summaries ultimately appeared in the [M]otion as though it were a quotation from a case,” not because “AI generated a fictitious case or a fictitious quotation.” He finished the motion “shortly before it was due” and sent it to his paralegal to file without “proofreading or citation review.” In his words: “Had I performed a final verification of the quotations and citations contained in the motion, the error would have been discovered and corrected.”

“The Court, of course, has no way of knowing whether the nonexistent quotation from Miller was a product of Mr. Krenning’s research and drafting process or the use of AI, but it will accept his representations as true.”

The source of the words did not change the result. The violation, the court held, was counsel’s “admitted failure to verify that the cases cited in the Motion stood for the propositions for which they were being relied upon.” It found no intent to deceive, but adopted the words of an earlier decision: counsel “displayed a reckless disregard for the obligation to ensure that what is filed in federal court is true, verified, and worthy of the public trust.”

On sanction, the court weighed the single citation, counsel’s acceptance of responsibility, his candor with his clients and his commitment to review his filings. “The Court does, however, have continuing concerns about counsel’s future reliance on AI and the need to verify the accuracy of the research generated thereby.” Its order:

“In the future, all filings submitted by the Law Office of Troy D. Krenning, LLC and/or individual counsel Troy D. Krenning shall contain an AI Certification regarding the use, or non-use, of generative AI (such as ChatGPT, Harvey.AI, or Google Gemini) in preparing the filing, signed by all individuals who contributed to the drafting of the filing. To the extent that generative AI was used in any drafting of the filing, each individual must certify that any language drafted by AI (even if later edited by a human) was personally reviewed by the filer or another human for accuracy and that all legal citations reference actual non-fictitious cases or cited authority.”

The court gave two examples of acceptable wording, “for illustrative purposes only”. The second reads: “The undersigned counsel certifies/certify that generative artificial intelligence was used to draft this filing. I/we further certify that [Party] was/were advised of and consented to such use. All cited authority was manually reviewed by counsel of record.”

Why it matters

Three features travel. First, the sanction is a record, not a payment. The court chose a standing requirement attached to one lawyer and one firm: every future filing says whether generative AI was used and, if it was, that a human reviewed the AI-drafted language and that every citation is real.

Second, the signature belongs to every drafter, not only to the lawyer who signs the filing. Each individual who contributed to the drafting signs the certification.

Third, the client. The court’s sample wording for a filing drafted with AI includes a statement that the client was advised of the use and consented to it.

The lesson for the next filing

The court accepted the lawyer’s account because nothing in the record could test it: it had “no way of knowing” whether the false quotation came from his notes or from AI. The certification it ordered puts that question to every filing from now on, with every drafter’s signature under the answer.

Regulayer™ creates checkable evidence of who approved exact words and when: which AI was used, what a named person reviewed, and the document it was sealed to, made at the time and verifiable free by the court without trusting the person who made it. It does not do the checking. It shows that the checking happened, and who stood behind it.

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Sources

Related

Checked against the order, read in full. 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.