Facey v Liane Fisher, Esq. 2025 NY Slip Op 33456(U) September 15, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 152088/2025 Judge: Mary V. Rosado is a legal malpractice case which is full of surprises. The first is that Plaintiff was actually paid the settlement amounts (and made to take it at the direction of a US District Judge), and after that Plaintiff’s attorney had a filing full of AI mistakes.
“Upon the foregoing documents, and after a final submission date of June 16, 2025, Defendants Liane Fisher, Esq. (“Fisher”) and Fisher Taubenfeld, LLP’s (“Fisher Taubenfeld”) motion to dismiss Plaintiff Monique Facey’s (“Plaintiff’) Amended Complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(l) and (a)(7), and for sanctions, is granted. Plaintiff’s cross motion to strike from Defendants’ motion papers allegedly scandalous material and imposing sanctions on Defendants is denied. Moreover, counsel for Plaintiff is directed to, within five days, submit an affirmation advising the Court whether he used artificial intelligence applications and/or chatbots to write his motion papers. He must also explain why his motion papers repeatedly cite to cases that do not exist and/or stand for legal propositions that are discussed nowhere in the cited decisions.”
“Allegedly Plaintiff received a settlement check in January of 2025, but was informed by her bank that the check was fraudulent. Plaintiff then alleges that Defendants lied about wiring the settlement funds to her bank. Based on these interactions, Plaintiff asserts claims for breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress against Defendants. However, reality is wholly separate from these allegations, which the Court finds to be entirely misleading to the point requiring sanctions. The reality is that when Plaintiff attempted to deposit her settlement check at her bank, Defendants received a fraud alert from Chase which required Defendants to verify the check. After realizing the amount of settlement proceeds disbursed to Plaintiff ($85,553.95) was lower than it should be ($89,553.43), Defendants cancelled the check and wired $89,553.43 to Plaintiff on February 7, 2025 (NYSCEF Doc. 15). On February 12, 2025, Plaintiff informed Defendants that the wire transfer was rejected. According to Chase, the wire was rejected because Plaintiff’s bank account was restricted (NYSCEF Doc. 17). Defendants e-mailed Plaintiff on February 12, 2025 to coordinate delivery of another settlement check to Plaintiff (NYSCEF Doc. 19). However, the very next day, on February 13, 2025, Plaintiff, through her counsel in this lawsuit, filed a Complaint in the Eastern District of New York making identical allegations to Amended Complaint here (NYSCEF Doc. 20). On February 14, 2025, Plaintiff initiated this lawsuit. Defendants’ counsel repeatedly reached out to Plaintiff’s counsel, stating the wire transfer did not occur due a hold on Plaintiff’s bank account, and repeatedly tried to disburse settlement funds to Plaintiff via check, but Plaintiff’s counsel never responded (NYSCEF Doc. 21). On March 7, 2025, the parties appeared in the Southern District of New York before United States District Judge Valerie E. Caproni, who supervised the delivery of the settlement check to Plaintiff, informed Plaintiff’s counsel that he is responsible for the obstruction in the check being delivered,and warned the parties that if they ever behave like this again they will be sanctioned (NYSCEF Doc. 23-24).”
“The Court likewise finds sanctions to be appropriate. This Court rarely, if ever grants sanctions, but in this case, the Court finds them warranted. Plaintiff’s counsel violated his duty of candor in informing the Court that Defendants repeatedly tried to send him the settlement check pre-suit and post-suit, and he never affirmatively informed the Court after filing this lawsuit that a Federal District Court judge compelled Plaintiff and him to accept the settlement check. Moreover, the Court finds the Complaint to be malicious and aimed at embarrassing and harassing Defendants. There is no reason why Plaintiffs counsel decided to include Plaintiffs photograph in the Complaint. Moreover, although United States District Judge Valerie Caproni warned Plaintiffs counsel his conduct was sanctionable, he has done nothing to correct his unprofessional and deceitful behavior in this action. This conduct cannot go unaddressed and without consequences. Therefore, Defendants’ motion for sanctions pursuant to 22 NYCRR 130-1.l(a) is granted, and Defendants shall submit a fee application so they can be granted a judgment against Plaintiffs counsel awarding them their legal fees incurred in filing this motion.”
“Finally, the Court must address the fact that Plaintiff’s motion papers are riddled with incorrect and false citations. It is well known that motion papers with incorrect and/or false citations is a sign that legal papers were written using artificial intelligence. This arises from a phenomenon associated with artificial intelligence where the artificial intelligence applications or chatbots “hallucinate” and generate fake or misleading legal citations due to programming flaws. For example, Plaintiff cites to a case called James v. City of New York, 144 AD3d 604, 605 (1st Dept 2016) and Board of Mgrs. of28 Cliff St. Condominium v. Maguire, 191 AD3d 553 (1st Dept 2021) (see NYSCEF Doc. 4 7). But no cases with these names exist under these citations, and while there is a First Department case from 2016 captioned James v. City of New York, 144 A.D.3d 466 (1st Dept 2016) there is nothing in that case related to the legal argument Plaintiff was making, namely whether an amended complaint makes a motion to dismiss moot. Likewise, while there is a case captioned Board of Managers of 28 Cliff Street Condominium v Maguire, 191 A.D.3d 25 (1st Dept 2020), that case too has nothing to do with the impact of an amended pleading being filed during a motion to dismiss. Plaintiff also cited to a case captioned Xiong v. Knight, 80 A.D.3d 1055 (3d Dept 2011)2 (see NYSCEF Doc. 38). But there is no such. Plaintiff cited to a case captioned Johnson v. Stadtlander, 162 A.D.3d 1580 (4th Dept 2018), but there is no case with that caption or that citation. There are other fake and/or incorrect citations in Plaintiffs papers, but the Court finds the ones highlighted here are sufficient to warrant an explanation from Plaintiff’s counsel. Therefore, within five days from entry of this Decision and Order, Plaintiff’s counsel must submit an affirmation advising the Court whether he used artificial intelligence applications and/or chatbots to write his motion papers. He must also explain why his motion papers repeatedly cite to cases that do not exist and/or stand for legal propositions that are discussed nowhere in the cited decisions.”