The sanctions record · Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 2026
Kiser v. DeSimone Auto Group
Paige Kiser and Ty Kiser v. DeSimone Auto Group, Jonsteve Enriquez, and Capital One Auto Finance, No. 2428 EDA 2025 (Pa. Super.) · Memorandum by Stevens, P.J.E., 27 August 2026
Page verified 1 September 2026. Court document read in full, 17 pages; quotations are from that memorandum. Non-precedential decision, see Superior Court O.P. 65.37. Container: AI Hallucination Cases tracker copy of the court’s document; not downloaded from the court’s website.
No fine was imposed here, and that is why the matter is worth reading. Appellants cited a case the court could not find in existence. The court did not reach for a sanction. It held the argument waived as underdeveloped and “supported in part by non-existent or unlocatable precedent”, and affirmed the judgment below. The citation did not cost counsel money. It cost the client the issue.
The record
- CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
- PanelLazarus, P.J., Sullivan, J., and Stevens, P.J.E. Memorandum by Stevens, P.J.E.
- CaseNo. 2428 EDA 2025, panel J-A12012-26
- StatusNon-precedential decision, Superior Court O.P. 65.37
- Filed27 August 2026
- BelowJudgment entered 22 December 2025, Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, Civil Division, No. 230403002
- Citation“Com v. Reid, 770 A.2d 771 (Pa. Super. 2001)”, which the court could not find in existence
- Where it leadsCommonwealth v. Burton, 770 A.2d 771 (Pa. Super. 1999), which addresses neither Pa.R.E. 404(B)(2) nor res gestae
- ToolNot named. The court declined to say what produced it
- SanctionNone. No monetary penalty, no referral
- OutcomeIssue waived; a further issue waived; judgment affirmed
- Also notedA defective word-count certification, and language misattributed to Justice Antonin Scalia
What the court held
The argument turned on Pa.R.E. 404(B)(2) and the res gestae exception. In support, the brief cited “Com v. Reid, 770 A.2d 771 (Pa. Super. 2001)”. The court wrote that it “can find no such case in existence”. The volume and page number lead instead to Commonwealth v. Burton, 770 A.2d 771 (Pa. Super. 1999), a decision that addresses neither of the propositions it was offered for.
The court then said what it would not say:
“this Court is left to guess whether this counterfeit authority is the product of a chatbot, or if there is a more nefarious explanation for the misinformation.”
That sentence is quoted from the court’s own earlier decision in Commonwealth v. Shie, 307 A.3d 668, 2023 WL 6878610, at *7 n.7 (Pa. Super. 2023) (unpublished). The memorandum also cites Sanders v. United States, 176 Fed. Cl. 163, 169 (Fed. Cl. 2025), for the observation that it “is no secret that generative AI programs are known to ‘hallucinate’ nonexistent cases”.
The disposition followed from the state of the briefing rather than from a rule on conduct. Because the section was underdeveloped, and “supported in part by non-existent or unlocatable precedent”, the issue was waived. A later issue was waived on the same footing. The judgment was affirmed.
Two further observations sit alongside it in the memorandum. The brief exceeded the length permitted without certification, and the certificate of compliance was filed as a separate document on the same day rather than included in the brief, which the appellees raised. And in a footnote the court described counsel’s misattribution of quoted language to Justice Antonin Scalia as “demonstrative of counsel’s apparent failure to carefully review the cases cited in his brief”.
Why it matters
Most of this record is measured in dollars. This one is not, and a practitioner should read it for exactly that reason. The consequence here landed on the client, not on the lawyer. The argument was never reached on its merits. It was set aside because the authority supporting it could not be found.
A fine can be paid. A waived issue cannot be reopened, and the appeal ended without that argument ever being heard.
It is also the first Pennsylvania Superior Court matter on this record. The court reached back to its own 2023 language, which means the position is not new there. What is new is the frequency with which it is being repeated.
The lesson for the next filing
Nobody was accused of anything here. The court simply could not verify the authority, so it declined to consider the argument built on it. Verification was the whole of the matter.
A record made at the time of filing shows what a named person actually checked before the brief went out, and it is verifiable by the court without a subscription or an account. It is made before anyone asks, because by the time the question arrives the issue is already waived.
Generate the certification → · Verify a sealed record free →
Sources
- Paige Kiser and Ty Kiser v. DeSimone Auto Group, No. 2428 EDA 2025 (Pa. Super.), memorandum filed 27 August 2026, non-precedential per Superior Court O.P. 65.37. Court document read in full, 17 pages. Container: the copy held by the AI Hallucination Cases database, not downloaded from the court’s website.
- Superior Court of Pennsylvania, where the docket itself is held
Related
- The full sanctions record
- State of Hawaiʻi v. Presti, where a published court held each nonexistent citation sanctionable
- Booker v. The Kroger Co., where the denial cost more than the citations
- The judges’ AI orders, one page each
Verified 1 September 2026 against the court’s written memorandum, read in full. The decision is non-precedential. 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.