Arbuckle v. Tanner, 2026 NSCA 62

What happened

Arbuckle v. Tanner is a family law appeal from a parenting and support order made after hearings on September 15 and October 21, 2025. Nova Scotia's Rule 90.29(5) requires an appellant to have the transcript prepared by a certified court reporter. In his certificate of readiness, the appellant, Kevin Arbuckle, represented that he had ordered transcripts from Videoplus Transcription Services. The firm's records showed he had asked only for estimates, on January 29 and April 14, and never placed an order.

His appeal book, filed June 3, omitted the September transcript; a supplementary book followed on June 22. The respondent's counsel obtained her own transcript, compared the two and identified 39 discrepancies, including testimony that was mistranscribed or never given and exchanges with the trial judge that were missing. She contacted the court transcriber whose certificate appeared on the appellant's transcripts. The transcriber said she had not transcribed or certified either hearing. The appellant's factum made 24 references to the challenged transcript.

In a July 24 affidavit the appellant said he used an AI tool to transcribe the raw audio and several AI tools to assemble the appeal book, giving them access to his Google Drive and local files. Those files held a genuine certified transcript from an earlier proceeding. His explanation was that "the AI hallucinated the formatting" and attached that transcriber's certificate page, name, registration number and signature to the new transcripts. He denied instructing it to do so.

What the court did

On August 12, Justice Gogan, sitting in Chambers, granted the respondent's motion under Rule 90.43 and dismissed the appeal in Arbuckle v. Tanner for failure to perfect it. The decision lists 4 defaults: a certificate of readiness the appellant knew was inaccurate, uncertified transcripts filed on June 3 and again on June 22, and no compliant appeal book by the date set. It states that "this motion is not about a rogue AI tool," and that if he used AI, "he remained responsible for the documents he filed with the Court and he admits not reviewing them before filing."

The court quoted its own AI policy of March 14, 2025: "Court participants are ultimately responsible for the content, completeness and accuracy of all material submitted to the Court." It described the conduct as "non-compliance well disguised as compliance" and found that, but for diligent counsel, the appeal could have proceeded on an inaccurate record. Costs were set at $20,000 on an indemnification basis under Rule 90.40(4). The court also struck a reply affidavit from respondent's counsel as hearsay.

The decision is available as a PDF copy.

Where it stands

The appeal is dismissed, and the trial judge's order stands. A certified transcript of the September 15, 2025 hearing exists, attached to the transcriber's affidavit; no certified transcript of the October appearance was before the court. Any further appeal, and payment of the costs award, were not located as of October 30. Arbuckle v. Tanner follows an earlier interlocutory appeal by the same appellant, dismissed in 2025 NSCA 54 with a separate $20,000 costs award.

The obligation it engaged

A transcript is evidence of what was said, and its certificate is the statement that tells a court it can rely on it. Arbuckle v. Tanner engages Clause 8 of the Standard, disclosure: the transcripts carried a provenance they did not have. It engages Clause 4, checkability before adoption, because the appellant admitted not reviewing the documents he filed. Clause 6, custody and confidentiality, is engaged by giving AI tools open access to a drive of case files, including another professional's signed certification.

Experts increasingly use automated transcription for recordings, interviews and depositions. Arbuckle v. Tanner suggests a simple discipline. Label any machine transcript as machine-made, compare it against the audio before relying on it, keep the tool's output separate from certified records, and never let a tool assemble a document that carries someone else's signature.

Sources

• Nova Scotia Court of Appeal (copy hosted by Damien Charlotin's AI Hallucination Cases database) · August 12, 2026
  Arbuckle v. Tanner, 2026 NSCA 62

What could not be confirmed

The AI tools are not identified; the account of how the certificate was attached is the appellant's own, untested by cross-examination, and the court called his rationale immaterial. The decision does not state the currency of the costs award; Canadian dollars are inferred. Paragraph 34 refers to an October 21, 2026 appearance, apparently meaning October 21, 2025. Any further appeal was not located as of October 30, 2026.