Published opinion, 5 March 2026 · source · PDF · 20 pages
Joan Pablo Torres Campos (Torres) appeals from a family court order denying his request for shared custody and visitation of a dog. He contends the court committed error by citing and relying on fictitious case authorities in its order. We agree the court so erred, but we conclude Torres forfeited this claim by drafting and submitting the very order he now challenges and failing to object or alert the court that the cited authorities were fake.
We therefore affirm the order. We also sanction respondent’s counsel Roxanne Chung Bonar for citing and relying on the same fictitious legal authorities in initial filings with this court. We publish this opinion to emphasize that courts and attorneys alike have a responsibility to protect the legal system against distortion by fabricated law, particularly in this new era of hallucinated citations generated by artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
Still represented by Bonar, Munoz filed an opposition to the motion. In her opposition, Munoz cited the nonexistent Twigg and Teegarden cases to argue that the issue on appeal was not “novel” as Torres claimed in his motion. She asserted: “This isn’t new, courts decide these based on what’s best for everyone involved (Marriage of Twigg (1984) 34 Cal.3d 926; In re Marriage of Teegarden (1995) 33 Cal.App.4th 1572).” We denied the motion to reinstate the appeal.
Torres then filed a second motion to reinstate the appeal pointing out for the first time that the Twigg and Teegarden authorities cited in the court’s order and in Munoz’s opposition to the first motion to reinstate the appeal did not exist and were “invented case law.” Bonar filed another opposition on behalf of Munoz.
The trial court in this case cited Twigg to support its finding that ongoing interaction between the parties would harm Respondent’s mental stability due to Appellant’s history of harassment. Appellant’s claim that this case does not exist is a misrepresentation, likely stemming from inadequate database searches or unfamiliarity with standard legal reporters. Such an error by Appellant’s counsel does not invalidate the trial court’s reliance on this established precedent.
Respondent’s counsel relied on established precedents, and a minor citation error[] does not constitute fabrication or a breach of duty under California Business and Professions Code 6068(d) or California Rules of Professional Conduct, rule 3.3.” The new information Bonar provided about Twigg in Munoz’s opposition, i.e., the parallel reporter citations (“195 Cal.Rptr.
In our order, we also directed Bonar to provide us with a copy of the Twigg decision taken from an official reporter and copies of any brief filed in superior court that cited Twigg or Teegarden. In response, Bonar admitted for the first time that the Twigg case did not exist. She claimed the Twigg citation “entered the record from two 8 sources”: (1) her client’s declaration in opposition to the RFO petition; and (2) the trial court’s order denying the RFO.
According to Bonar, she “mistakenly assumed that, because these materials were part of the Superior Court’s official record, the citations had already been vetted and could be relied upon as accurate.” Bonar did not submit any declaration of her own, but she submitted one from her client Munoz. Munoz explained that the Twigg case was discussed in a Reddit article a paralegal friend had sent her, and Munoz did not realize the case was fictitious. The Reddit article was attached as an exhibit to Munoz’s declaration.