# Flycatcher v. Affable Avenue (S.D.N.Y.): a lawyer's repeated AI-fabricated citations cost his client the case by default judgment, then cost him $38,877.59 in fees

> Judge Katherine Polk Failla struck Affable Avenue LLC's motion papers and entered default judgment against it after its lawyer, Steven A. Feldman, filed AI-generated nonexistent cases and misattributed quotes in three filings, then ordered Feldman personally to pay $38,877.59 in fees and costs to the opposing firm that caught the errors.

- Verification status: verified
- Case type: deployment
- Provider: Generative-AI legal research and cite-checking tools (vLex, Paxton AI and NotebookLM are named in the opinion; no single product is blamed)
- Client: U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y. (Judge Katherine Polk Failla), Flycatcher Corp. Ltd. v. Affable Avenue LLC, No. 24 Civ. 9429 (KPF); sanctioned: attorney Steven A. Feldman and his client Affable Avenue LLC, Courts / legal (AI-governance honest-negative) (named)
- Sector: legal / US / cross
- Verified on: 2026-10-21
- Canonical URL: https://theinternetninja.com/stories/flycatcher-v-affable-avenue-sdny-failla-feldman-ai-fabricated-citations-default-judgment-38877-fees-2026/
- Source: The Internet Ninja (theinternetninja.com), independent verified-proof platform

## Outcomes

| Metric | Before | After |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Terminal sanction (Feb. 5, 2026): Affable's motion-to-dismiss papers struck and default judgment entered against Affable, with damages deferred |  |  |
| Fee sanction (Oct. 9, 2026): Feldman ordered to pay $38,877.59 in fees and costs within 30 days, after a 10% cut to the $42,090.00 fee request |  |  |
| Three filings with AI-produced nonexistent cases or misattributed quotes; 14 of 60 cited cases fake in the first brief, by the lawyer's own count |  |  |

## Verification method

Court-adjudicated, public record only. Both signed opinions (ECF 227 and ECF 364) read in full from CourtListener RECAP and byte-tied by sha1 to Wayback captures; every quoted figure matched verbatim; the default judgment corroborated by Reason/Volokh, Justia News and Ars Technica, and the fee award by USA Herald and The National Law Review, each read from its own archived capture. No party contacted.

## FAQ

**What happened in Flycatcher v. Affable Avenue?**

On February 5, 2026, Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York sanctioned attorney Steven A. Feldman by striking his client Affable Avenue LLC's motion-to-dismiss papers and entering default judgment against Affable, after finding he misused AI in three filings that contained nonexistent cases and misattributed quotes.

**Can a lawyer's AI fake citations make the client lose the case?**

Yes, in this case. The court entered default judgment against the client, Affable Avenue LLC, as the sanction for its lawyer's repeated AI-fabricated citations, holding that a client is bound by its lawyer's acts.

**How much did the lawyer have to pay in Flycatcher v. Affable Avenue?**

On October 9, 2026, the court ordered Steven A. Feldman to pay $38,877.59 in attorneys' fees and costs to Mandelbaum Barrett PC within 30 days, after cutting the requested $42,090.00 in fees by 10% largely because of his limited ability to pay.

**Did the court ban the use of AI in Flycatcher v. Affable Avenue?**

No. The court said its problem was not the use of AI per se but the lawyer's flawed research and cite-checking, his refusal to verify his submissions, and his unwillingness to come clean.

## Full case file

## The problem

Flycatcher Corp. Ltd. and Flycatcher Toys, Inc. sued Affable Avenue LLC and other defendants in the Southern District of New York on December 11, 2024, over trademark infringement and related claims ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.227.0.pdf)). Affable's lawyer, Steven A. Feldman, filed a motion-to-dismiss brief in June 2025, and on June 26, 2025 counsel for co-defendant Top Experience, Joel MacMull, told the court it cited "at least thirteen cases Mr. Feldman cited that did not exist, and eight cases that did exist but did not contain the quotes Mr. Feldman attributed to them" ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.227.0.pdf)). Those counts are MacMull's, as recited by the court, not a tally the court made itself ([source](https://news.justia.com/judge-enters-default-judgment-due-to-repeated-false-citations-generated-by-ai/)). At the August 22, 2025 hearing Feldman corrected the judge's "one-quarter" with his own figure, "Fourteen out of 60 cited cases," and the court answered that "it is <span class="kpi">14 fake cases</span> too many" ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.227.0.pdf)). Ars Technica restates that as "three filings containing 14 errors out of 60 total citations," which is looser than the opinion: there, the 14-of-60 figure belongs to the first brief alone ([source](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/randomly-quoting-ray-bradbury-did-not-save-lawyer-from-losing-case-over-ai-errors/)).

## What was built

Nothing was built. This is an honest-negative about what happens when AI output goes to a court unchecked. Feldman told the court he found cases through Google Scholar, Google and vLex and then cite-checked by running the brief through "either vLex or Paxton AI," and under oath he agreed he had not cite-checked it himself: "The Court: You didn't fully cite check the brief, before you submitted it to me. Mr. Feldman: Correct, I did not." ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.227.0.pdf)). His response to the Order to Show Cause, which quoted Ray Bradbury and invoked "the ancient libraries of Ashurbanipal," itself carried a quotation attributed to *Mata v. Avianca* that the court traced to a 2023 law-firm article, and for that filing he said the tool he used was NotebookLM ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.227.0.pdf)). His August 8, 2025 proposed reply brief then cited a *Himmelstein* case under reporter citations that, the court found, do not exist ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.227.0.pdf)). The court's finding: "Mr. Feldman misused AI in <span class="kpi">three separate filings</span>, which resulted in the submission of nonexistent cases and misattributed quotes" ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.227.0.pdf)). The court named the tools but blamed none of them, stating that "its problems with Affable's submissions are not the use of AI per se" ([source](https://reason.com/volokh/2026/02/06/lawyers-repeated-filings-with-ai-hallucinations-lead-to-default-judgment-against-client/)).

## The outcome

On February 5, 2026, finding bad faith, Judge Failla imposed a terminal sanction: "the Court SANCTIONS Mr. Feldman by entering <span class="kpi">default judgment</span> as to his client, Defendant Affable Avenue LLC," struck docket entries 153 through 156, and deferred the assessment of damages until the claims against the remaining defendants are resolved ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.227.0.pdf)). The court explained why the client bears it: a party "cannot 'avoid the consequences of [its lawyer's] acts or omissions'," and "If Mr. Feldman could not verify a citation, he should not have cited it" ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.227.0.pdf)). Justia News and Ars Technica reported the default judgment independently ([source](https://news.justia.com/judge-enters-default-judgment-due-to-repeated-false-citations-generated-by-ai/)) ([source](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/randomly-quoting-ray-bradbury-did-not-save-lawyer-from-losing-case-over-ai-errors/)).

On October 9, 2026, the court priced the lawyer's share. MacMull sought <span class="kpi">$43,086.59</span>: "$42,090.00 for 73.2 hours of attorney time billed and $996.59 in Westlaw legal research fees," at $575 an hour ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.364.0.pdf)). "[L]argely motivated by Mr. Feldman's limited ability to pay," the court cut the fee component by <span class="kpi">10%</span> and awarded MacMull's firm, Mandelbaum Barrett PC, <span class="kpi">$38,877.59</span>, payable by Feldman "within 30 days of this Opinion" ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.364.0.pdf)). The figures reconcile: $42,090.00 less 10% is $37,881.00, plus $996.59 is $38,877.59 ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.364.0.pdf)). Two independent reports carry the award: USA Herald, a general-news site and the weakest source on this page, so it confirms the figure rather than establishes it ([source](https://usaherald.com/lawyers-ai-hallucinations-cost-his-client-the-case-and-now-he-must-pay-nearly-39000/)), and a National Law Review analysis by a Greenberg Traurig attorney, a firm not involved in the case ([source](https://natlawreview.com/article/hallucination-sanctions-potential-costs-unverified-ai-citations)). The court also justified paying the lawyer who reported the errors: "courts depend on attorneys to bring to their attention other lawyers' faulty citations" ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.364.0.pdf)).

> **How this was verified**
> Method: independent audit of the public record only. No party was contacted. Both signed opinions, the February 5, 2026 sanctions opinion (ECF 227, 33 pages) and the October 9, 2026 fee opinion (ECF 364, 18 pages), were read in full from CourtListener RECAP, and each PDF is byte-identical (sha1) to its Wayback capture. Every quoted figure was matched verbatim against the extracted text. The default judgment is corroborated by Reason/The Volokh Conspiracy, Justia News and Ars Technica, and the fee award by USA Herald and The National Law Review, each read from its own archived capture. The 13 + 8 count is opposing counsel's and the 14-of-60 count is the lawyer's own; the story labels both that way. Verification date: 2026-10-20.

## Related case files

- [Mata v. Avianca, the canonical $5,000 ChatGPT-citation sanction in the same court that Feldman tried to distinguish himself from](https://theinternetninja.com/stories/mata-v-avianca-chatgpt-fake-citations-5000-sanction-rule-11-sdny-2023/)
- [Couvrette v. Wisnovsky, the other case where AI-fabricated citations ended the case, by dismissal with prejudice plus $15,500](https://theinternetninja.com/stories/couvrette-v-wisnovsky-d-oregon-brigandi-15500-ai-fabricated-citations-500-per-case-1000-per-quote-2025/)
- [Lacey v. State Farm, where a special master also shifted the cost of AI-fabricated citations as fees, $31,100](https://theinternetninja.com/stories/lacey-v-state-farm-ellis-george-kl-gates-ai-fabricated-citations-31100-special-master-sanctions-2025/)
- [Deutsche Bank v. LeTennier, New York's first appellate AI sanction, where counsel also kept filing fake cases after being caught](https://theinternetninja.com/stories/deutsche-bank-v-letennier-nyad-3d-dept-fisher-10000-ai-fabricated-citations-first-ny-appellate-sanction-2026/)

## Sources

1. **Tier 1 (primary, signed court opinion).** U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y., *Flycatcher Corp. Ltd. v. Affable Avenue LLC*, No. 24 Civ. 9429 (KPF), Opinion and Order (ECF 227), 2026-02-05. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.227.0.pdf
2. **Tier 1 (primary, signed court opinion).** U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y., *Flycatcher Corp. Ltd. v. Ozmos Company LLC*, No. 24 Civ. 9429 (KPF), Opinion and Order on attorneys' fees (ECF 364), 2026-10-09. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195/gov.uscourts.nysd.633195.364.0.pdf
3. **Tier 2 (independent legal commentary).** Reason / The Volokh Conspiracy, "Lawyer's Repeated Filings with AI Hallucinations Lead to Default Judgment Against Client," 2026-02-06. https://reason.com/volokh/2026/02/06/lawyers-repeated-filings-with-ai-hallucinations-lead-to-default-judgment-against-client/
4. **Tier 2 (independent legal press).** Justia News, "Judge Enters Default Judgment Due to Repeated False Citations Generated by AI," 2026-02-11. https://news.justia.com/judge-enters-default-judgment-due-to-repeated-false-citations-generated-by-ai/
5. **Tier 2 (independent technology press).** Ars Technica, "Lawyer sets new standard for abuse of AI; judge tosses case," 2026-02-06. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/randomly-quoting-ray-bradbury-did-not-save-lawyer-from-losing-case-over-ai-errors/
6. **Tier 2 (independent general news, weakest load-bearing source).** USA Herald, "Lawyer's AI Hallucinations Cost His Client The Case And Now He Must Pay Nearly $39,000," 2026-10-12. https://usaherald.com/lawyers-ai-hallucinations-cost-his-client-the-case-and-now-he-must-pay-nearly-39000/
7. **Tier 2 (independent legal analysis).** The National Law Review, Kathryn C. Cole (Greenberg Traurig, LLP), "From Hallucination to Sanctions: The Potential Costs of Unverified AI Citations," 2026-10-20. https://natlawreview.com/article/hallucination-sanctions-potential-costs-unverified-ai-citations