Flycatcher Corp. Ltd. v. Affable Avenue LLC
- Katherine Failla
- 1:24-cv-09429
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Flycatcher v. Affable Avenue, Judge Failla barred further explanations and warned of possible sanctions over apparently AI-related citation errors.
Mr. Feldman and Affable Avenue LLC were placed on notice that the court was considering sanctions, potentially including default judgment for the Plaintiffs. The order also directed Mr. Feldman not to file further explanations on the docket.
What happened
In Flycatcher Corp. Ltd. v. Affable Avenue LLC, counsel for Affable Avenue LLC submitted a reply brief supporting its motion to dismiss that contained an incorrect citation to a nonexistent version of a case about New York consumer-protection law.
The court found that the citation instead pointed to unrelated opinions, including a criminal case and an animal-welfare case. Counsel attributed the mistake to a clerical error during final citation checking and included a Google search result, but the court said that explanation created additional confusion.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla directed counsel not to file more explanations on the docket and stated that she was considering sanctions against counsel and Affable, including a possible judgment for the plaintiffs because of the citation errors.
The detailed version
- Flycatcher Corp. Ltd. v. Affable Avenue LLC · No. 1:24-cv-09429
- Katherine Failla
- Aug. 12, 2025
Background
Counsel for Defendant Affable Avenue LLC, Mr. Feldman, filed a letter asking the court to consider Affable’s reply memorandum supporting its motion to dismiss the Third Amended Complaint. The reply brief cited “Himmelstein v. Comcast of the D.C., LLC, 908 F.3d 49 (D.C. Cir. 2018),” in connection with Plaintiffs’ argument that their allegations were directed at consumers as required by New York General Business Law § 349.
The court confirmed that the cited “Himmelstein” decision did not exist as described. The citation instead directed the court to a page in a Fourth Circuit opinion affirming a criminal conviction and sentence. Another citation in the reference pointed to a District of Columbia opinion concerning intervention in litigation involving an Animal Welfare Act rule. The court stated that Mr. Feldman likely intended to cite a New York Court of Appeals decision discussing General Business Law § 349.
Counsel’s explanation
Mr. Feldman later stated that the incorrect citation was a clerical error introduced during final verification of the citation and table of authorities. He included a Google search result for “himmelstein consumer.” The court found this explanation confusing because the relevant New York case had already been cited elsewhere in the briefing, the reporter citations in the search result were not the citations used in the reply brief, and the District of Columbia case was a Fair Credit Reporting Act case that did not mention General Business Law § 349.
The court also referred to an earlier filing by Mr. Feldman that contained a similar citation error. It stated that it was considering whether and how to sanction him in connection with both filings, which the court described as apparently involving artificial-intelligence hallucinations.
Order and effect
The court had previously denied Mr. Feldman’s request to consider the reply memorandum, while allowing him to renew the request orally at a conference scheduled for August 22, 2025. In this order, the court directed Mr. Feldman not to file further explanations of his conduct on the docket. It placed him on notice that it was considering a range of sanctions against him and Affable, including default judgment in the Plaintiffs’ favor. The order did not impose a sanction or decide Affable’s motion to dismiss.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla signed the order on August 12, 2025.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.