Published opinion, 17 November 2025 · source · PDF · 9 pages
The County of San Bernardino _______________________________________ THE COURT We issued an order to show cause why attorney Jeffrey Dean Grotke (State Bar No. 231454) should not be sanctioned for “relying on fabricated legal authority.” (Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P .
On January 9, 2025, Grotke filed the appellant’s opening brief (hereafter AOB) in the same case. The Writ included the following citations to cases that do not exist: (1) Estate of Layton (1938) 29 Cal.App.2d 599 (Writ p. 40), (2) Riddle v.
30). The AOB also included citations to cases that do not exist: (1) Estate of Kraus (1970) 8 Cal.App.3d 429 (AOB p. 16) and (2) Estate of Hermon (1973) 16 Cal.App.3d 421 (AOB p.
And the cited pages do not support the legal propositions for which Grotke cited them. Grotke did not cite any other legal authority to support any of the propositions for which he cited the nonexistent cases. (Writ pp.
Harmon (1980) 102 Cal.App.3d 524, (3) Estate of Kraus (2010) 184 Cal.App.4th 103, and (4) Estate of Hermon (1995) 39 Cal.App.4th 1525. And the actually existing cases with those names do not support the legal propositions for which Grotke cited nonexistent cases with those names. On September 19, 2025, we provided the parties with a tentative opinion and gave them 12 days to request oral argument.
We further notified him that the four spurious citations appear to have been fabricated by artificial intelligence (AI)—“‘what has become known as AI “hallucinations.”’” (Noland, supra, 114 Cal.App.5th at p.
It was not willful. It resulted from a breakdown in my citation-verification process during compilation from vLex (vlex.com).” (Grotke Decl. ¶ 2.) But he also said that after he received our September 19, 2025, order directing him to provide copies of the four cases, he “created a temporary membership with vLex (vlex.com), retrieved, and reviewed the decisions that appeared— by party name—to correspond to those authorities.” (Grotke Decl. ¶ 4.) 3 Grotke further attested: “I did not fabricate opinions, quotations, or pin citations. The authorities I intended to rely upon are real published California decisions.
My error was in providing reporter citations that, at the volume/page listed, resolved to different opinions than the ones I intended.” (Grotke Decl. ¶ 3.) As to “[w]hy the four citations ended up incorrect,” Grotke stated: “I cannot identify a single, specific cause for each mismatch.” (Grotke Decl. ¶ 8, boldface omitted.) Grotke attested that “the core allegation as to using ‘AI hallucination’ cases is entirely untrue.” (Grotke Decl. ¶ 18.) He asserted that “none of these cases was the product of an AI hallucination, and these errors are entirely clerical in nature.” (Grotke Decl. ¶ 9.) Grotke “accept[ed] responsibility for ensuring that the reporter citations and pinpoints are accurate […]