Court orders Rich to show cause over factitious citations

A docket entry dated 2026-09-24 in Clark v. Social Security, Commissioner of says the court ordered Rich to show cause why she should not be sanctioned, including with a fine, for including factitious citations in a plaintiff’s brief. CourtListener RECAP dockets reports that the brief utilized generative artificial intelligence and that Rich responded to the order concerning that use. The entry does not report a final sanction or a final ruling on the explanation.

The order matters because AI assistance does not change the basic accountability question: whether legal work placed before a court is accurate. The court’s response moves that question from general concern to a concrete procedural consequence. A show-cause order is not a fine, but it requires counsel to answer for the citations and leaves a fine among the stated possibilities. That is the practical meaning of AI not eliminating the consequences of bad legal work. The obligation attaches to the brief submitted to the court, not to the novelty of the tool used to prepare it.

The narrower reading is the one the filing supports. Clark v. Social Security, Commissioner of establishes that a court connected alleged factitious citations in one brief with an order requiring a lawyer to show cause, while also identifying AI use in preparing that brief. It does not establish that every AI-assisted filing contains fabricated authorities, that AI caused the citations, or that Rich will ultimately be fined. Douglas v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Co., Published Order provides a related judicial description of misuse of artificial intelligence and its consequences for attorneys, but it does not supply facts about the Clark matter. Macias v. CCADC shows that a filing can identify OpenAI Codex assistance and include a personal-review certification covering the accuracy of AI-assisted portions, including citations. That filing does not show that certification prevents errors. Together, these cases support accountability as a condition of usable AI-assisted legal work, not a conclusion that AI-assisted work is inherently defective.

The next decisive fact is the order resolving the show-cause proceeding in Clark v. Social Security, Commissioner of. It will show whether the court imposes a sanction or fine, declines to do so, or identifies a different consequence after reviewing the explanation for the factitious citations. A ruling that imposes a consequence would strengthen the direct example: AI assistance did not displace counsel’s responsibility for the filed work. A ruling that declines a sanction would not erase the order or the need for verification; it would show that the alleged defect and the final consequence are separate questions. We will treat the final order, rather than the presence of AI in the drafting process, as the measure of what this case proves.