Rodriguez v. Rodriguez: Florida Court Issues Show Cause Order Against Attorney for AI Hallucinations | Advocate Prakhar

Case at a Glance

Full Citation	Rodriguez v. Rodriguez, Case No. 6D2025-3086, Fla. 6th DCA (April 10, 2026); 2026 WL 1102361 (not for publication)
Court	Sixth District Court of Appeal, State of Florida (Pratt, J.; Stargel and Mize, JJ., concurring)
Date	10 April 2026
Category	AI Hallucination & Attorney Sanctions
Jurisdiction	USA — Florida
AI Tool Used	Generative AI (unspecified; inferred from hallmarks of AI-generated text)
Outcome	Petition dismissed; attorney ordered to file copies of all cited cases within 10 days; order to show cause why sanctions and Florida Bar referral should not issue

Background

Bruno Roberto Rodriguez petitioned for certiorari review of a marital dissolution proceeding in the Circuit Court for Orange County. His attorney, Karin Gerardin of Gerardin Law Firm P.A. in Tavares, Florida, filed the petition along with a reply on his behalf. The underlying dispute involved community property division, spousal support, and sanctions. The 6th DCA dismissed the petition on its merits but wrote separately to address a pattern of citation errors that the court concluded bore “hallmarks” of generative AI use without adequate verification.

The AI Issue

The petition cited several cases — some of which existed and stood for the asserted propositions, some of which did not exist at all, and some of which existed but were cited for legal propositions they did not actually represent. The same defects appeared in the reply brief. The court invoked its recent precedent in Hessert v. Hessert, No. 6D2026-0121, 2026 WL 785016 (Fla. 6th DCA Mar. 20, 2026) — a case involving a pro se litigant — and applied it with equal force to a licensed attorney, holding that there is “simply no excuse” for filing briefs that cite cases without first confirming they exist and stand for the cited propositions, regardless of whether the filing was AI-assisted.

What the Court Decided

• The certiorari petition was dismissed without detailed discussion on the merits [threshold jurisdictional bar].
• Attorney Gerardin was ordered to file authenticated copies of all cited cases with highlighted passages supporting each asserted proposition within ten days [verification order].
• Gerardin was directed to show cause within ten days why she should not be sanctioned for filing non-existent case citations [attorney sanctions].
• Gerardin was directed to show cause why she should not be referred to The Florida Bar for potential disciplinary action [bar discipline referral].
• Courts cannot be satisfied by an attorney relying on AI to cite-check AI — personal human verification is mandatory [non-delegable duty].

“Although AI is a relatively new technology, and although AI may have appropriate uses in the legal field, there is simply no excuse for pro se litigants or attorneys to file briefs, motions, and other filings in Florida’s appellate courts that cite to cases without first performing the necessary and simple steps of (1) cite-checking the cases to ensure they actually exist and (2) cite-checking the cases to ensure they actually represent the legal propositions asserted.”

— Pratt, J., Florida 6th District Court of Appeal, 10 April 2026 (quoting Hessert)

The India Angle

Indian Law Equivalent

Florida’s Rule 4-3.3 (Candor Toward the Tribunal) under the Florida Rules of Professional Conduct mirrors the duty under Bar Council of India Rules, Part VI, Chapter II, Section II, Rule 1 — advocates must not knowingly make false statements of law to a court. India’s Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 provides analogous jurisdiction to sanction advocates who file misleading material. The Supreme Court of India’s suo motu powers and High Courts’ inherent powers under Article 215 of the Constitution allow for similar show-cause proceedings against advocates who file AI-hallucinated citations.

Bar Council Rules

Under Bar Council of India Rules, Part VI, Chapter II, Section II, Rule 2, an advocate shall not suppress material facts or misstate the position of law. Filing fictitious case citations — whether generated by AI or otherwise — directly violates this rule and may attract disciplinary proceedings before the State Bar Council under Section 35 of the Advocates Act, 1961, with potential outcomes including suspension or removal from the rolls.

Practical Advice for Indian Advocates

• Never ask an AI system to verify citations it generated — this circular verification is specifically condemned by courts; always cross-check against neutral case law databases independently.
• When filing in High Courts or the Supreme Court of India, consider maintaining a citation-verification log showing the database used, the date checked, and the page reference for each authority cited.
• Indian appellate courts are increasingly receiving pro se and advocate-filed briefs with AI-hallucinated citations — be alert to opponents’ citations as well and flag non-existent cases promptly.

Quick Takeaways

• Attorneys, not just pro se litigants, face show cause orders and bar referrals for AI hallucinations in filings.
• Relying on AI to verify AI-generated citations does not satisfy professional obligations.
• Florida’s 6th DCA has established a two-part cite-check requirement applicable to all filings, AI-assisted or not.

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Deep Dive: The Hessert Doctrine and the Escalating Florida Response to AI Hallucinations

Rodriguez v. Rodriguez is significant not as an isolated incident but as the second application of what is emerging as a coherent Florida appellate doctrine on AI-generated legal filings. The court explicitly built on its March 2026 decision in Hessert v. Hessert, where a pro se litigant had submitted a petition with non-existent citations. In Hessert, the 6th DCA issued a comprehensive survey of Florida procedural rules, bar rules, and judicial conduct standards, concluding that courts have both the authority and the duty to maintain filing integrity — including through sanctions and bar referrals. Rodriguez extended this doctrine to licensed attorneys, closing a potential gap that might have allowed practitioners to argue that pro se-focused standards did not bind them.

The court’s framing of the attorney’s duty is particularly instructive for understanding the limits of AI integration in legal practice. The opinion notes that generative AI tools “can hallucinate or create inaccurate answers that sound convincing,” quoting directly from Florida Bar Ethics Opinion 24-1 (January 2024). This is not a technological novelty — the bar had formally warned about this risk fifteen months before the Rodriguez petition was filed. The court’s decision to issue a show cause order rather than immediate sanctions reflects procedural fairness, but the underlying message is unmistakable: the Florida appellate system will treat citation failures in AI-assisted briefs as presumptively sanctionable unless the attorney can demonstrate active verification measures.

When placed alongside the contemporaneous UK ruling in Rodney (County Court at Dudley, April 23, 2026) and the 2023 landmark in Mata v. Avianca (S.D.N.Y.), Rodriguez forms part of a global convergence on attorney responsibility for AI outputs. What distinguishes the 2026 US and UK cases from Mata is the maturity of the judicial response: where Mata was a first-encounter ruling that generated extensive public commentary, the 2026 cases are enforcement decisions delivered by courts that view the legal profession as having had adequate notice and opportunity to build AI verification protocols. The shift from novelty to negligence in judicial framing has significant implications for sanctions severity going forward.

For Indian advocates, Rodriguez offers a concrete model of what proportionate judicial response to AI hallucinations looks like at an intermediate appellate level. The two-step show cause procedure — first demanding authenticated copies of cited cases, then requiring justification for the citation failures — could easily be adopted by Indian High Courts acting under their inherent powers. The Bar Council of India’s Standards Committee should consider issuing specific guidance on AI citation verification, as Florida’s Bar Ethics Opinion 24-1 has done, to give practitioners a clear standard against which their conduct will be measured when AI hallucination complaints inevitably reach Indian disciplinary bodies in larger numbers.