Docket entry 79, 20 October 2026 · source · PDF · 5 pages
Docket text. RESPONSE re [77] Notice (Other) of Errata filed by Christian and Jewish Alliance Inc., Ezra Ministries, Ruth Mastron. (Brinkerhoff, John)
TO NOTICE OF ERRATA CASE NO. 3:25-CV-02992-AGS-AHG RESPONSE TO DEFENDANTS’ NOTICE OF ERRATA Two days before the hearing on their mo tion to dismiss, Defendants filed what they styled as a “Notice of Errata,” which entirely deletes three fabricated citations, adds three new citations, rewrites arguments to co rrect several other false characterizations of cases, and invokes new parts of other sources. See ECF 77.
1. In their response to Defendants’ motion to dismiss, Plaintiffs identified two fabricated citations that Defendants invoked in multiple briefs. MTS Resp., ECF No.
Defendants’ reply brief failed to acknowledge one of these citations (and its accompanying substantive argument), yet th ey now withdraw it in full. Defendants called the other fabricated citation Plaintiffs expressly identified—a statutory subsection that does not exist (purportedly defining “place of religious worship”)—a “housekeeping matter” and “drafting error.” MTD Reply, ECF No. 51, at 13–14.
Even as they finally acknowledge these and other false citations months later, they still do not acknowledge the problem, instead maintaining that the citations were “errata” and “inadvertent errors.” Notice 2. Fabrications are not “housekeeping matter[s] ,” “drafting error[s],” or “errata.” The California Rules of Professional Cond uct make clear that ci ting false sources— whether sources that simply “do not exist” or “real authorities” that are “gross[ly] misrepresent[ed]”—violates the duti es of competence and diligence. Malkeet Lnu v.
2024 ). Those duties require counsel not only to “review the output of generative AI for fabrications and basic accuracy” but also “to read the legal authorities they cite … to determine that the authorities stand for the propositions for which they are cited.” Malkeet, 177 F.4th at 1026 (quoting Noland Case 3:25-cv-02992-AGS-AHG Document 79 Filed 10/20/26 PageID.1110 Page 2 of 5 2 RESP. TO NOTICE OF ERRATA CASE NO.
In Malkeet, the Ninth Circuit held that a party’s attempt to replace fabricated citations using a “Notice of Errata” that “simply listed the fa bricated citations and said that each was ‘an error’ or ‘incorrect’” was “not suffic ient disclosure,” and instead was “subtle subterfuge.” Id.
22–23. Plaintiffs’ argument sounds in constitutional avoidance, so is viable because (1) Jingrong itself found “place of religious worship” to be ambiguous, which brings the avoidance canon into play, and (2) 1 For purposes of the California Rules of Professional Conduct, it does not matter whether the fabrications were the result of generative AI use, whether “other cases may stand for the propositions asserted,” or whether those propositions are “case determinative or hotly contested.” Malkeet Lnu, 177 F.4th at 1027. Case 3:25-cv-02992-AGS-AHG Document 79 Filed 10/20/26 PageID.1111 Page 3 of 5 3 RESP.
2001), is equally problematic. As with the fabricated statutory section, they swap out what they presented, inaccurately, as binding authority (a Ninth Circuit decision) for what is, at most, persuasive authority. Even setting that aside, Defendants originally suggested that Laughton concerned elements of California state law.