The sanctions record · United States, N.D. Illinois, 2026
Shelbert v. Baxter International, Inc.
No. 26 C 6266 · Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division · Chief Judge Virginia M. Kendall · 26 August 2026
Page verified 30 August 2026. The order was read in full from the document text. The admonishment sits at the end of an order that is otherwise about affirmative defences.
An admonishment, no money, and a finding drawn from the clock. The order identifies no contemporaneous account of how the brief was produced. It reasons from the docket timing instead, and then says the inference did not matter to the outcome. That second half is what makes the order worth reading twice.
What the court was actually deciding
Most of this fourteen page order is a Rule 12(f) motion to strike affirmative defences, granted in part and denied in part. The passage that matters here is at the end, a notice under Rule 11 and an admonishment under the court’s inherent authority, resting on Vega v. Chicago Board of Education, 109 F.4th 948, 954 (7th Cir. 2024) and Johnson v. Cherry, 422 F.3d 540, 551 (7th Cir. 2005).
The timeline the court built
- 18:04On 27 July 2026 Baxter files a twenty six page Answer raising fourteen affirmative defences.
- 19:29The plaintiff files a ten page motion to strike. One hour and twenty five minutes have passed.
- ThenA reply follows Baxter’s response by two hours and twenty one minutes.
- 26 Aug 2026Order. Motion granted in part and denied in part. Rule 11 notice and admonishment to both parties. No monetary sanction.
Why the interval mattered
“in 1 hour and 25 minutes is quite speedy indeed… Yet it is not boilerplate but bespoke… The presumable conclusion was that Tyler had AI review Baxter’s Answer and had it generate his Motion to Strike.”
Two facts had to sit together for the inference to work. The filing was fast, and it was specific to the document it answered. Speed alone would suggest a form. Specificity alone would suggest ordinary work. The court put them side by side and drew a conclusion about how the brief came to exist, from the docket timing alone.
The limiting principle, in the court’s own words
“While there is not yet a proscription prohibiting this conduct, there is a proscription of filing a brief with citations to cases that do not stand for the asserted proposition.”
That sentence, resting on Perez-Castillo v. Blanche, 177 F.4th 837, 848 (7th Cir. 2026), separates the two questions cleanly. Using the tool was not the violation. Filing an unsupported citation was. The court then closes the gap from the other side:
“Even if this mistake were committed without the assistance of AI, that would not change the result.”
The citation itself
A Seventh Circuit decision reported at 858 F.2d 1264 was cited repeatedly for a proposition about affirmative defences. The court records that the words “affirmative defense” do not appear in that opinion, and names in a footnote the district court decision it takes counsel to have meant, Instituto Nacional de Comercialización Agrícola (Indeca) v. Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co., 576 F. Supp. 985, 988 (N.D. Ill. 1983).
The order ends with a warning aimed at both sides:
“This admonishment serves as both parties’ warning that the Court will not countenance any submission containing false or hallucinated citations or factual assertions.”
The last three words carry more than they look like they do. The warning is not confined to the citation table.
Where this sits on the district’s own ladder
The order names two Northern District of Illinois matters that went further. Allen v. Casper, 2026 WL 674309, at *10 (N.D. Ill. 10 Mar. 2026), a Rule 11 sanction of $1,500 for misusing AI. Obi v. Cook County, 2026 WL 1001481, at *2 (N.D. Ill. 9 Apr. 2026), a Rule 11 sanction of $5,000. Against those, an admonishment with no money attached is the bottom rung, and the order says so by citing them.
What this case contributes
- The methodA federal chief judge treated filing latency as circumstantial evidence of how a document was produced. The docket is a timestamped record, and the order reasons from it.
- The gapThe order identifies no contemporaneous account of how the brief was produced. The inference filled the space where such an account would have sat.
- The holdingThe court declined to rest the outcome on the inference. The unsupported citation was the violation with or without a tool.
- The scopeThe warning reaches false or hallucinated citations and factual assertions.
The lesson for the next filing
The order identifies no contemporaneous account of how the brief was produced, and reasons from the docket timing. The interval between two entries is what the finding rests on.
A record made while the work happens answers that question directly rather than leaving it to be inferred: what was drafted, what was checked, and by whom.
Sources
- Order, Document 17, No. 26 C 6266 (N.D. Ill. 26 August 2026), fourteen pages, read in full.
- Located through Damien Charlotin’s AI Hallucination Cases database, which is a compilation and not a primary source. The order itself is the source for everything on this page.
Related
- The full sanctions record
- James v. Conley, where the fabricated material was a fact rather than a case
- Ruiz v. Magellan Financial, the same month, and a formal public reprimand
- Every verified AI standing order
Checked 30 August 2026 against the order text, 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.