Three summary judgment rounds and an appellate brief full of made-up cases
A Hawai’i foreclosure eight years in the making just ended - with the court flagging fabricated citations in the homeowner’s appeal.
The Intermediate Court of Appeals of Hawai’i affirmed a foreclosure judgment for U.S. Bank Trust National Association, as Trustee of the Chalet Series IV Trust, in a summary disposition order dated October 8, 2026. The self-represented homeowner had been fighting the case through three rounds of summary judgment motions since 2016.
The bank sued to foreclose a residential mortgage that year. Its first two summary judgment motions were denied. The second fell short because the bank could not properly establish evidentiary foundation for its business records - a familiar hurdle in Hawai’i foreclosure cases under U.S. Bank Trust v. Verhagen.
On the third try, filed July 24, 2024, things went differently. A paralegal at the law firm that filed the original complaint submitted a declaration showing the firm held the original indorsed-in-blank promissory note at the time of filing. That was enough to establish the bank as “the holder of the instrument” under Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 490:3-301, putting the ball in the homeowner’s court to raise a genuine factual dispute.
She did not file a formal opposition. She did file a motion to dismiss, arguing the 2022 denial of the bank’s earlier motion was binding under law of the case and res judicata. The court rejected both arguments. The earlier denial turned on an evidentiary gap, not a legal finding that the bank lacked standing. And res judicata, the court noted, “only applies to new suits.”
On appeal, the homeowner pressed three points: the bank lacked standing, the note was forged, and a genuine issue of material fact existed. All three failed. Forgery was waived - never raised at trial court. The material-fact argument fell apart because the homeowner’s motion included no affidavit, declaration, or evidentiary exhibit.
The sharpest section of the order, though, was about the appellate brief itself. It cited cases that “do not exist” - including Gapero v. K.J.K. Corp. and Harris v. Palm Beach County - which the court called “hallucinations” and flagged as violations of HRCP Rule 11(b)(2). The court also noted: “It is concerning that Bank’s answering brief did not call our attention to any of the hallucinations.”
For mortgage servicers and their litigation teams, the practical takeaway is twofold: standing in Hawai’i foreclosure cases still hinges on getting the business records foundation right - and fabricated citations, whether AI-generated or not, are firmly on appellate courts’ radar.
