Shayan v. Shakib

Filed 12/1/25 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

B337559, B339376 PEIMAN SHAYAN, (Los Angeles County Plaintiff and Appellant, Super. Ct. No. 23STCV03714)

v. (William F. Fahey, Judge)

EBBY SHAKIB, ORDER Defendant and Respondent.

Farivar Law Firm and Fahim Farivar for Plaintiff and Appellant. Murphy Rosen, David Rosen; Novian & Novian, Farid Novian and Sean Raymond Bozarth for Defendant and Respondent. _______________________________

THE COURT: It is undisputed that appellant’s attorney, Fahim Farivar, filed a brief containing numerous fabricated quotations—that is, language falsely attributed to published decisions. By filing a brief that misrepresents legal authority, Farivar unreasonably violated longstanding rules of this court. Regardless of

whether inaccuracies in a brief are the result of using artificial intelligence (AI) tools or some other drafting process, as Farivar and appellant argue occurred here, the signatory attorney is responsible for the content of the brief and subject to sanctions for inaccuracies it contains. Accordingly, we grant respondent’s motion to strike appellant Peiman Shayan’s opening brief. In addition, on the court’s own motion, we award monetary sanctions, payable to the court, against Farivar, and allow appellant to file a new brief.

A. The Parties’ Arguments and Submissions Respondent Ebby Shakib contends that attorney Farivar used AI in drafting appellant’s opening brief, resulting in the brief “containing what are commonly referred to as [AI] ‘hallucinations’ ”—here, “made[-]up quotes from reported decisions.” Further, as respondent notes, appellant’s opening brief quotes from “a transcript of a hearing in a different matter altogether” (italics omitted), strategically replacing with ellipses the portions of the quotation that would betray it is from a hearing in another case. 1 On these bases, respondent moved this

1 Specifically, in arguing the lower court was reluctant to grant appellant leave to amend his complaint, the opening brief purports to quote the court as saying the following: “ ‘Well, at best that would cure that one issue. But as I said at the outset, there are a number of other problems with your . . . I’m not sure I would give you full leave to amend; but I’m going to take it under submission.’ (RT, 11/09/23, pp. 17:17–24.)” This quote, however, is from the transcript of a November 9, 2023 hearing in DZCollections v. Abadi, not this case. The complete quote reads as follows (the portions omitted in the appellant’s opening brief are bolded): “The Court: Well, at best that would cure that one