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Florida · state appellate court · 2026

Melissa Elizabeth Harrell Hessert v. Gary Bell Hessert and Megan Wieland Pulayya

District Court of Appeal of Florida, 20 March 2026. What the court wrote about citations that did not exist, in its own words, from the document on file.

Case record · Fla. Dist. Ct. App.

  1. Court. District Court of Appeal of FloridaCOURT
  2. Level. state appellate courtLEVEL
  3. Date. 20 March 2026DATED
  4. Docket. No. 6D2026-0121DOCKET
  5. Documents. one document, 3 passages quoted belowON FILE
  6. Source. CourtListenerSOURCE

Retrieved · the text below was read from the source documents on that day.

What the court wrote

The passages in which the court addresses the fabricated authority, verbatim, by document. A bracketed ellipsis marks where a passage was cut for length; nothing else is changed.

Published opinion, 20 March 2026 · source · PDF · 8 pages

Only four of the cited cases both exist and are cited for legal propositions that the cited cases actually represent. Five of the cited cases do not exist. Four of the cited cases are cited fo r legal propositions that the cited cases do not actually represent.

Four of the cited cases are cited fo r legal propositions that the cited cases do not actually represent. Courts across the United States, including Florida’s appellate courts, are currently grappling with an influx of court filings produced by pro se litigants and attorneys alike with the assistance of AI that cite non-existent cases or that cite actual cases for inaccurate legal propositions. See, e.g., Russell v.

Bar 3 -7.18 (rule governing the disposition of inquiries or complaints referred to the Bar by members of the judiciary). All filers in cases before the Sixth District Court of Appeal should take notice: our Court will remain vigilant to ensure that filings signed by pro se litigants and attorneys alike—including filings prepared with or without the assistance of AI — both: (1) do not cite to non-existent cases and (2) do not cite to cases for inaccurate legal propositions. If and when any such erroneous filings are made in a given case before our Court, filers on the opposite side of the case should point out such errors to our Court either in their responsive filings or via motion.

What the text mentions

Pattern matches on the documents' text. Each line is a fact that the text contains the words, not a finding about the case.

Where this fits

This page is a record, not legal advice. It quotes the documents on file and lists what their text mentions. Read the decision at the source before relying on it, and check whether a later order changed it.

More from District Court of Appeal of Florida, from Florida, or from 2026. The whole record is at court decisions on AI-hallucinated citations.

Every case in this record shares one cause: a citation reached a court without anyone opening it. What a citation gate is explains the mechanism that makes that impossible by construction; how to check an AI citation in five minutes is the manual version; the sanctions record is the essay this table grew out of.

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