Business Law Journal

Background

The troubled case is In re Domestic Partnership of Campos and Munoz 118 Cal. App. 5th 1112 (2026).  It follows the dissolution of a domestic partnership where appellant, Joan Pablo Torres Campos, asked the trial court for shared custody and visitation of a dog he had jointly owned with his former domestic partner and respondent, Leslie Ann Munoz.  Ms. Munoz, through her pro-bono attorney, Roxanne Chung Bonar, who happened to be her cousin, opposed the request and cited purported case law for the proposition that courts should prioritize the parties’ emotional well-being and stability.

The problem? Not only was one of Cousin Bonar’s cited cases, “Twigg,” completely made up, another cited case, “Teegarden,” although premised on a real case, had a different official citation and did not actually support the cited proposition.    It is not every day where one reads a case decision that begins with a disclaimer that the “decision contains discussions of citation references that are incorrect or do not actually exist,” although we may see more if attorneys remain unfazed by these horror stories and continue to engage in the practice of presenting unverified case citations.   

The hallucinations went undetected and the trial court ruled in Ms. Munoz’s favor, denying Mr. Torres’s request for custody and visitation of the dog.  In doing so, the court’s written order—drafted by Mr. Torres’s attorney—repeated and relied on those same fabricated citations.  Neither the parties nor the court verified these authorities before the order was entered.

Appeal

Mr. Torres appealed the trial court’s decision; however, his attorney failed to timely file an Opening Brief which led the Court of Appeal to initially dismiss the appeal.  Mr. Torres then filed two motions to reinstate the appeal.  After the first motion was denied, in the second motion, Mr. Torres argued, for the first time, that the trial court’s decision should be reversed because the decision relied upon “invented case law.”  In re Domestic P'ship of Campos & Munoz at 233.  In an unsettling fashion, instead of using this opportunity to demonstrate a semblance of diligence and correct the record, Ms. Bonar doubled down in Ms. Munoz’s opposition, stating the cases were “legitimate” and even going as far as accusing Mr. Torres’s counsel of “misrepresentation, likely stemming from inadequate database searches or unfamiliarity with standard legal reporters.”  Id.  Even more egregious, while Ms. Bonar conceded that her citation to Twigg was erroneous due to a “typographical mistake,” the correction she provided was also fictitious.  Id. 

The Court of Appeal reinstated the appeal and directed Ms. Bonar to provide the Court with a copy of the alleged decisions from an official reporter.  Ms. Bonar finally admitted that Twigg did not exist and was allegedly found on a Reddit thread relied on by Ms. Munoz, although she failed to explain how the false citation information she provided as a correction came to be. 

The Court of Appeal then issued an Order to Show Cause why sanctions should not be imposed against Ms. Bonar for citing fictitious cases, in oral arguments for which Ms. Bonar admitted to not having a paid subscription to a legal research service, that she was using AI to conduct legal research, and that Twigg and Teegarden may have been obtained using AI tools. 

In deciding on the merits of the appeal and the sanctions, the Court of Appeal held that while sanctions are warranted for Ms. Bonar and the trial court abused its discretion in relying on the fake cases to issue its order, Mr. Torres had forfeited his right to challenge the trial court’s order based on its reliance on the fake cases after the fact. 

On the abuse of discretion issue, the Court of Appeal said, “[w]e have no difficulty concluding that it is an abuse of discretion for a court to rely in material part on fictional case authorities in rendering a decision or making an order.  Reliance on fake cases is fundamentally incompatible with an informed exercise of discretion controlled by genuine principles of law.  It seriously undermines the integrity of the outcome and erodes public confidence in our judicial system.  It can also hinder meaningful appellate review.”  In re Domestic P'ship of Campos & Munoz at 236 (citing Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P. (2025) 114 Cal.App.5th 426, 443). 

As for the merits of Mr. Torres’s appeal, the Court of Appeal cited the doctrine of forfeiture.  Id. at 236 (quoting In re S.B. (2004) 32 Cal.4th 1287, 1293) (“Under the doctrine of forfeiture, ‘a reviewing court ordinarily will not consider a challenge to a ruling if an objection could have been made but was not made in the trial court.’”).  It did not help that Mr. Torres’s own counsel drafted and filed the proposed order with the fake citations that the trial court executed.  “Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations . . . that the attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally read and verified,” stated the Court of Appeal.  In re Domestic P'ship of Campos & Munoz at 237.  The Court of Appeal decided that although it had discretion to overlook the forfeiture, it was declining to do so because it would effectively excuse Mr. Torres’s breach of duty to the court in submitting the proposed order without verifying the citations.  Id. at 238. 

In sanctioning Ms. Bonar, the Court of Appeal found that relying on fake case citations is sanctionable because “it constitutes unreasonable violation of the [California Rules of Professional Conduct] requiring that each point be supported by actual legal authority and prohibiting citation of unpublished authorities.”  Id. at 240.  Such “conduct falls far short of” an attorney’s duty of candor with the Court and Ms. Bonar “persisted in this conduct even after being alerted to the fake authorities” which the Court of Appeal highlighted as doubling down on fake case citations as opposed to coming clean. 

 Takeaways

This case highlights the importance of hiring seasoned, diligent counsel who will not accept cited legal authority at face value.  What makes the case particularly striking is not just the outcome, but the snowballing effect caused by the initial error.  The falsified case citations were repeated in filings, relied upon by the trial court in its reasoning, and ultimately incorporated into the trial court’s final order.

AI tools are remarkably effective at producing answers that appear accurate.  They can generate case names, citations, and explanations that sound authoritative and polished.  But they are not inherently reliable sources of truth.  Sometimes they are accurate; sometimes they are not.  Without verification, there is no telling as to whether its output will help you win your motion or jeopardize your career.

Even when AI (or any secondary source) identifies a real case, it may not stand for the cited proposition.  It is equally important for opposing counsel to verify citations relied on by the other side and do so in a timely manner.  While Mr. Torres’s attorney has not yet faced sanctions for failing to verify the fake citations by Ms. Bonar, his counsel’s lack of diligence prejudiced him.   

The Court of Appeal’s message was clear: if you cite a source, you are responsible for it; if your opponent relies on that same source without verifying, they are also on the hook; and courts must verify citations and ensure they truly stand for the propositions cited, especially in the new age of AI.  And, if not, being embarrassed in numerous articles about you penned by presumably dozens of your colleagues and legal journalists may be the least of your worries.

This AALRR publication is intended for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon in reaching a conclusion in a particular area of law. Applicability of the legal principles discussed may differ substantially in individual situations. Receipt of this or any other AALRR publication does not create an attorney-client relationship. The Firm is not responsible for inadvertent errors that may occur in the publishing process.

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