Category: Rule 341

AI Strikes Again- Appeal Dismissed

P-Three Development, LLC v. Therm Flo, Inc., 2026 IL App (1st) 250567-U

Disposition: Appeal dismissed; intervenor-appellant’s brief stricken under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 341.

Background: This is a sprawling underlying dispute over data center equipment in Mount Prospect, Illinois, stemming from a 2014 settlement note that was later assigned to P-Three Development, LLC when it purchased one of the data centers in 2015. As part of that purchase, P-Three (through its sole manager, Ravi Kadiyala) executed a release discharging the “Pressman defendants” from claims on the note. Despite that release, P-Three sued in 2021 anyway, and when defendants moved for summary judgment based on the release, P-Three/Kadiyala claimed the release was a forgery. The circuit court granted summary judgment for defendants (finding the release valid) and imposed Rule 137 sanctions after finding Kadiyala’s forgery claims were false — discovery showed he had in fact signed and transmitted the release.

The intervention issue: After P-Three’s own attorneys withdrew and it went unrepresented, Kadiyala tried to keep litigating pro se on P-Three’s behalf, which the trial court rejected since he wasn’t a party. He then filed a formal petition to intervene individually under 735 ILCS 5/2-408(a)(3), which the trial court denied, finding he hadn’t shown he’d benefit or suffer from the litigation’s outcome. Kadiyala appealed that denial.

Why the appeal was dismissed: The court didn’t reach the merits of the intervention question. Instead, it focused on serious Rule 341 compliance problems in Kadiyala’s appellate brief:

  • He misquoted the actual statutory text of section 2-408(a)(3).
  • He cited four entirely fictitious cases (Greer, S.I.T.E., Hartigan (the fake one), and a fabricated Ortega citation), complete with invented quotes and holdings.
  • He cited several real cases (the actual E&E Hauling, Zivin, Bilyk, Smith, and Himmel decisions) but attributed fabricated quotes and holdings to them that bore no relationship to what those cases actually addressed.

The court noted these hallmarks strongly suggested undisclosed use of generative AI in drafting the brief, and — citing the Fourth District’s recent In re Baby Boy decision — reiterated that the Illinois Supreme Court’s AI policy permits AI use but requires attorneys (and, per Holzrichter, pro se litigants held to the same standard) to verify AI-generated content before filing. Because the fabrications were pervasive rather than an isolated slip, the court exercised its discretion to strike the brief and dismiss the appeal outright rather than proceed to the merits, declining to address the abuse-of-discretion standard of review issue on intervention or the substantive section 2-408(a)(3) arguments at all.

Appellate Brief Stricken By Court – Possible AI Use

In Cole v. Lee, 2026 IL App (1st) 252223-U, the appellate court struck Cole’s brief and dismissed his appeal entirely for violations of Illinois Supreme Court Rule 341(h)(7) — the rule requiring an appellant’s brief to support its argument with citations to authority. The problems fell into two related categories:

1. Misattributing propositions to cases that don’t support them

Cole cited real, correctly-identified cases but claimed they stood for propositions they simply didn’t contain:

  • He cited Avery v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 216 Ill. 2d 100 (2005), for the proposition that Consumer Fraud Act damages claims are legal claims triable to a jury — but the court found nothing in Averysupporting that.
  • He cited People ex rel. Daley v. Datacom Systems Corp., 146 Ill. 2d 1 (1991), for the proposition that when legal and equitable issues are joined, the legal issues must go to a jury — again, unsupported by the actual case.

2. Miscited case citations (wrong volume/page combinations)

Beyond mischaracterizing holdings, several of his citations didn’t correspond to the cases he named at all:

  • “Stephens v. Kasten, 334 Ill. App. 3d 1004″ — Stephens is actually a supreme court case at 383 Ill. 127 (1943); the citation he gave instead landed on an unrelated criminal case, People v. Lewis.
  • “In re Estate of Mulvaney, 288 Ill. App. 3d 464″ — Mulvaney actually begins at 128 Ill. App. 3d 133 (1984); his citation instead pointed to a different criminal case, People v. Lambert.
  • The court noted the same pattern recurred with his citations to Kaiser v. MEPC American Properties and Harris Trust & Savings Bank v. Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine — and that these were just the errors in the firstof three argument subsections.

Why this was fatal rather than just criticized

The court invoked the principle that a reviewing court is “entitled to have the issues clearly defined and supported by pertinent authority” and is not obligated to “act as an advocate or seek error in the record” on the appellant’s behalf (quoting U.S. Bank v. Lindsey). Rule 341(h)(7)’s citation requirement implicitly demands accurate citations — citing to nothing, or to the wrong case, defeats the purpose of the rule and shifts the research burden onto the court.

The court also stressed two aggravating points:

  • Cole’s pro se status didn’t excuse compliance with the rules, and pro se status doesn’t earn him extra leniency (citing People v. Shunick, 2024 IL 129244).
  • Cole had a documented pattern — the opinion lists eight other appeals where he’d committed similar Rule 341 violations, two of which had already resulted in stricken briefs and dismissed appeals.

Given that history, the court treated this as a case where striking the brief and dismissing the appeal (an admittedly “drastic” remedy per Hall v. Naper Gold Hospitality) was warranted, citing Ammar v. Schiller, DuCanto & Fleck, LLP as support for that outcome given repeated, escalating noncompliance.

Rule 341(h)(7) citation accuracy isn’t a formality — courts treat fabricated or unsupported legal propositions as substantively undermining the entire brief, not just a technical defect in one section. This looks like a case where a pro se litigant used AI to create a brief and the AI struggled.