Douglas v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Co.

What happened

Douglas v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Co., No. 24-CV-1099, is an appeal from a Superior Court judgment on the pleadings in a judicial foreclosure. Barry Douglas, the appellant, is self-represented. Deutsche Bank, as trustee, is represented by the law firm McCabe, Weisberg, & Conway, LLC. While reviewing the bank's brief, the court found citations it could not locate, and on June 22, 2026 it ordered the bank to show cause "why the court should not strike its brief for citing nonexistent cases that are possibly the product of artificial intelligence (AI) hallucinations."

Attorney Loishirl W. Hall responded in her own capacity and confirmed that four authorities in the brief did not exist. She explained that she had "used Google's generative artificial intelligence search tool to assist in locating case authority" and had not verified the results. The firm said it had been "unaware" of her actions, that it prohibits using AI to draft legal documents, and that she no longer works there. Two other attorneys were listed on the brief; the order notes that no information was provided about their review of it.

What the court did

On September 3, 2026, in a published order, the court struck the appellee's brief and referred the matter to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Douglas had expressed incredulity that a competent firm representing one of the largest financial institutions in the world could file such a brief; the court wrote: "we echo Mr. Douglas's incredulity." Acknowledging that some of the brief's authorities were genuine, the court rejected the idea that this mitigated the fake ones, quoting the Sixth Circuit in Whiting v. City of Athens: "Put bluntly—absolutely not; period; end of story; all stop." It also quoted the California Court of Appeal in Noland v. Land of the Free for the principle that no filing should contain citations an attorney has not personally read and verified. It rejected the firm's proposal to accept the brief with the bad citations redacted, "as it would constitute effectively no sanction at all."

Senior Judge Glickman joined and concurred. He noted that this was the first reported case in which the court had received a brief with fabricated citations, described striking the brief as "an appropriate but comparatively weak response that unfortunately penalizes the innocent client," and addressed the responsibility of attorneys whose names appear on a brief they did not draft.

Where it stands

The appeal proceeds without the bank's brief. The disciplinary referral had no reported outcome as of October 8, 2026. The order was read in full for this update; an earlier version of this entry relied on the Volokh Conspiracy's reproduction because the court's file could not then be retrieved.

Douglas v. Deutsche Bank adds an appellate court and a large institutional client to a list that already includes Johnson v. Dunn and In re Prince Global Holdings. Striking the represented party's own brief places the cost of unverified citations on the client's position in the appeal, which is the point the concurrence makes.

The obligation it engaged

The conduct engages Clause 3 of the Standard, independent authority. A search tool that generates answers is a system within the Standard's definition, and nothing it returns can enter a filing or a report until the authority has been confirmed in the reporter or the court's own record.

For an expert the parallel is direct. An expert who cites a case, a regulation or a study located through a generative search tool is relying on that tool's output exactly as this brief did. The redaction proposal the court refused also has a parallel: removing a false citation after it is caught does not repair the method that produced it.

Sources

• The Volokh Conspiracy (Reason) · September 4, 2026
  Incredulity That Competent Law Firm Representing One of the Largest Financial Institutions in the World Filed Brief with AI Hallucinations
• WJLA · September 2026
  DC court strikes brief after lawyer cites four AI-generated cases that did not exist
• District of Columbia Court of Appeals · September 3, 2026
  Published Order, Douglas v. Deutsche Bank Nat'l Tr. Co., No. 24-CV-1099

What could not be confirmed

The court's website refused automated downloads at times; the order was read from a copy retrieved during the research pass. The Office of Disciplinary Counsel's handling of the referral is not public. Correction: an earlier version of this entry presented the words 'Put bluntly—absolutely not' as the court's own; the order quotes them from Whiting v. City of Athens (6th Cir. 2026).