- Court
- Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal
- Case Number
- 4D2026-0406 & 4D2026-0921 (Consolidated)
- Date Filed
- May 27, 2026
- Judges
- Per Curiam
- Disposition
- Petitions denied; filing bar imposed
Background
Robert Hinton Avery, the husband in an underlying divorce case, filed two consolidated pro se petitions — one for a writ of mandamus and another for certiorari. In the first case (4D2026-0406), Avery filed a 41-page, single-spaced AI-generated petition seeking to compel rulings on more than 90 pro se motions he had filed below. He subsequently filed a first supplement adding 24 more single-spaced pages of AI-generated argument, and then a second-supplemental memorandum of 19 more pages. In the second case (4D2026-0921), he filed an AI-generated certiorari petition seeking review of a nonfinal order denying his motion to vacate an agreed order regarding therapeutic supervised timesharing.
Holding
The Fourth DCA ordered that it would no longer accept pro se filings from Avery, imposing a filing bar. The court found that the petitions contained AI-hallucinated legal arguments — including the recurring claim that orders entered before a UCCJEA affidavit was filed are void and that orders entered by a prior judge must be vacated. The court noted these arguments “misstate the law” and the cited cases “do not support the argument.”
The court held that “AI-hallucinated arguments are just as egregious as a citation to non-existent law,” citing Clerk of Court & Comptroller for 13th Judicial Circuit, Hillsborough County v. Rangel, 427 So. 3d 1069 (Fla. 2d DCA 2025). The court emphasized that pro se litigants are not held to a lesser standard, citing Goya v. Hayashida, 418 So. 3d 652, 655 (Fla. 4th DCA 2025), and are responsible for their AI-generated filings and may face sanctions for filings containing fictitious authority or that “cite actual cases for inaccurate legal propositions.”
The court also found frivolous arguments including that the filing of a motion to disqualify automatically stays proceedings and deprives the trial court of jurisdiction, and that prohibition can be used to seek disqualification of a trial judge in the first instance.
Key Takeaways
- AI-hallucinated legal arguments — those that misstate holdings of real cases — are sanctionable to the same degree as citations to fabricated cases.
- Pro se litigants are held to the same standard as attorneys regarding the accuracy of AI-generated filings.
- A filing bar is an available sanction for repeated abuse of the appellate process through AI-generated frivolous filings.
- The filing of a motion to disqualify does not automatically stay proceedings or deprive the trial court of jurisdiction.
- Prohibition cannot be used to seek disqualification of a trial judge in the first instance.
Why It Matters
This case extends Florida’s developing body of AI-sanctions jurisprudence to pro se litigants. While prior cases like Goya v. Hayashida and Francois v. Vive Financial addressed attorneys, Avery establishes that the same standards apply to self-represented parties. The imposition of a complete filing bar — rather than monetary sanctions — reflects the court’s view that repeated AI-generated frivolous filings warrant the most severe procedural remedy. For courts throughout Florida, this decision provides precedent for addressing the growing phenomenon of pro se litigants using AI tools to generate voluminous filings that waste judicial resources and contain hallucinated legal propositions.