Key Points
- The Fourth District affirmed summary judgment for City National Bank of Florida and 2655 SW 25 LLC on statute-of-limitations grounds without discussing the merits.
- The court extended its precedents sanctioning fabricated citations under Rule 9.410(a) to a party's motion for attorney's fees as a sanction under Rule 9.410(b).
- The plaintiffs' initial brief cited a nonexistent case seven times, included fictional quotations and misstated real authorities, and counsel admitted the brief was prepared with generative AI and client-supplied research.
- The plaintiffs and their counsel are jointly and severally liable for the defendants' appellate fees, with the amount to be set on remand and rehearing work included.
- The same day, the Second District dismissed a pro se appeal over eleven unlocatable cases and held that Rule 9.410(a) authorized sanctions without retroactive application of amended Rule 2.515(d)(2).
A Florida appeals court on Oct. 7 ordered two companies, an individual plaintiff and their lawyer to pay the appellate legal fees of City National Bank of Florida and its co-defendant after their brief cited a nonexistent case seven times and attributed invented quotations to real court decisions.
The Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed a final summary judgment that Broward County Circuit Judge Jeffrey R. Levenson granted to the bank and a co-defendant, 2655 SW 25 LLC. The trial court had found the claims of Kid International LLC, Lichi LLC and Yaron Katz barred by the statute of limitations. Judge Shaw wrote the opinion, and Chief Judge Gerber and Judge Lott concurred.
The panel then granted the defendants' motion for sanctions and awarded them their reasonable attorney's fees for the appeal. "The plaintiffs and their counsel shall be jointly and severally liable for the payment of this award," Judge Shaw wrote.
The ruling extends a recent line of Florida decisions punishing fabricated citations. Judge Shaw wrote that those earlier cases "involved an appellate court's own authority to sanction a party" under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.410(a). The panel concluded that "their reasoning should be extended to cases such as this one, where a party moves for attorney's fees as a sanction" under subsection (b) of the same rule.
The defendants' motion, as the court summarized it, said the plaintiffs' conduct "compelled them to waste valuable time and money searching for cases that did not exist or reviewing cases which had no bearing on the issues on appeal."
The court's own review of the initial brief confirmed five sets of errors. The brief cited Ogilvie v. Sebring Airport Authority, a case the court called "hallucinated" because it does not exist, seven times and quoted language from it. The brief also relied on a 2024 federal decision involving the same bank to assert, with fictional quotations, that the bank had made admissions bearing on this case. The plaintiffs argued that the federal case "is devastating to [the defendant bank's] position."
Three other citations failed in different ways. One case had a different citation, court and year than the brief gave and did not contain the quoted language. A quotation attributed to a 1956 Florida Supreme Court decision did not appear in that opinion, and a 1998 decision of the same court was "not accurately excerpted" for several propositions, the court found.
The panel ordered the plaintiffs to show cause why it should not strike the brief or impose other sanctions. The order cited Rule 9.410(a) and a 2026 Florida Supreme Court amendment to Rule 2.515, which allows sanctions after the signer receives "notice and an opportunity to be heard."
In response, the plaintiffs' lawyer admitted that the brief "contained legal authorities, citations, quotations, and/or characterizations that were not adequately verified before filing" and fully accepted responsibility. He told the court he had accepted his client's offer to supply research materials in order to control litigation expense. His firm also used generative artificial intelligence as one component of its research and drafting process.
The lawyer said his "verification process failed to identify before filing that certain authorities did not exist, were inaccurately cited, or did not support the propositions attributed." He sought leave to substitute an amended brief, "though, alas, as counsel admitted, the amended brief did not resolve all the citation issues," Judge Shaw wrote.
The panel decided the appeal on the original brief and disregarded the fabricated material. It quoted its 2025 decision in Friend v. Serpa: "Such phantom authority cannot assist any litigant and must be expressly disregarded by this court." A footnote recounted that the plaintiffs, before hiring a lawyer, had filed a complaint on their own that cited thirty-two cases, fifteen of which did not exist. The sanctions ruling addressed only the appellate brief.
The same day, Florida's Second District Court of Appeal dismissed a pro se appeal by LaVonne and Michael Washington, whose initial brief cited eleven cases the court could not locate. The Washingtons called the citations scrivener's errors "resulting from intense logistical pressure." They also argued that their brief predated the amended Rule 2.515 and that the court could not apply the amendment retroactively.
The unsigned opinion of a panel of Judges Northcutt, Kelly and Morris rejected that argument. The panel wrote that courts had held, even before the amendment, that litigants and attorneys represent the accuracy of a filing by signing it, and that "signing a filing that contains fictitious citations breaches that representation." Rule 9.410(a) already allowed the court to sanction that breach, the panel held. It added that "it is not the source of the fictitious cases that concerns us, but the Washingtons' reliance on them in their brief."
The Second District also weighed the Washingtons' meritless filings in two related proceedings. It directed its clerk to place in an inactive file any new appeal or original proceeding by either of them related to the underlying Hillsborough County case, unless a member in good standing of The Florida Bar signs it or it relates to a proceeding already pending. A footnote cautioned that fictitious citations in their other pending cases "may result in additional sanctions."
Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Fourth District case included Winsor Daniel Jr. of The Daniel Firm. The bank and its co-defendant were represented by Christopher B. Spuches of Lynx Law PLLC.
The Fourth District remanded the case to the Broward County circuit court to set the amount of the fee award. If the plaintiffs move for rehearing, the defendants' work on that motion, including any response, will count toward the fees. The opinion is not final until the court disposes of any timely rehearing motion.