Was EFD USA, INC., et al. v. Band Pro Film and Digital, Inc., et al. sanctioned over AI-generated citations?

EFD USA, INC., et al. v. Band Pro Film and Digital, Inc., et al. (CA California, February 18, 2026) is a documented matter involving citations that could not be verified against the reporters named. The recorded outcome was: Monetary penalty: $900. $900 in monetary penalties.

Which AI tool was involved in EFD USA, INC., et al. v. Band Pro Film and Digital, Inc., et al.?

The order in EFD USA, INC., et al. v. Band Pro Film and Digital, Inc., et al. does not identify a specific generative tool by name. The court treated the citations as the product of an unverified AI-assisted drafting workflow.

February 18, 2026 · AI sanctions database

EFD USA, INC., et al. v. Band Pro Film and Digital, Inc., et al.

EFD USA, INC., et al. v. Band Pro Film and Digital, Inc., et al. is one matter in the Veritas record of US court proceedings involving AI-generated citations that could not be verified against the reporters named. The summary below is drawn from the underlying court document, linked at the foot of this page.

Court: CA California
Date: February 18, 2026
Party: Lawyer
AI tool: Not identified in the order
Outcome: Monetary penalty: $900
Penalty: $900 in monetary penalties.

Fine

What the record shows

The Court of Appeal found that EFD's appellate briefing contained quotations and descriptions of legal authority that do not appear in the cited cases. Attributing the errors primarily to attorney David Azar's failure to safeguard against AI hallucinations, the court imposed a sanction of $900 payable by Azar to the court.

This entry reflects the court document as filed. The citations at issue could not be located in the reporters named at the time of the order. The reading here is descriptive of the public record and is not legal advice.

Source documents

Primary court document ↗

The test this filing did not run

Every matter in this record shares one mechanism: a citation that did not resolve to an opinion in the reporter named, in a brief that was filed before any verification step ran. Veritas runs that step. The Filing Risk Scanner extracts each citation, resolves it against reporter and public-record sources, and returns a verdict on each one — located, partial, or not located in reporter — before the brief is signed.

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Filed under · AI sanctions database · CA California

About this publication

Veritas is a pre-filing citation verification platform for law firms and in-house counsel. Every post on the audit log is written by the Veritas editorial team and cross-checked against the underlying sanctions order, standing order, or published opinion it references. Reporter citations are read in their named volumes. Quotations from court orders are checked against the docket.

The product was built by Andrew Zoll, founder of Veritas, who tracks generative AI sanctions in federal and state courts and turns each documented failure mode into verification logic the scanner runs. Veritas was built after the canonical Mata v. Avianca sanctions order made the verification gap a published failure mode of the bar.

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