In re María V. Irizarry Centeno; Anissa M. Bonilla Irizarry

Issue

When a trial court has already fined lawyers for filing a motion whose quotations from the high court were invented, does professional discipline follow automatically, or can the disciplinary court find the conduct sanctionable and still impose no sanction?

Rule

The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico applied the Code of Professional Ethics in force when the conduct occurred: Canon 18, 4 LPRA Ap. IX, C. 18, which requires competent, careful, and diligent work; Canon 35, which requires conduct before the courts to be sincere and honest and forbids inducing the adjudicator into error through artifice or a false account of the facts or the law; and Canon 38, the duty to uphold the honor and dignity of the profession. It treated Rule 9.1 of the Rules of Civil Procedure as imposing on the signer an affirmative duty of reasonable inquiry into the facts and the applicable law before filing, and noted that the trial court had used Rule 9.3 to sanction delay. Before fixing a disciplinary sanction the court runs a nine-factor analysis covering reputation, prior history, whether this is a first offense and whether anyone was harmed, sincere acceptance and contrition, frivolous defense of the conduct, whether the conduct was isolated, profit motive, restitution to the client, and any other mitigating or aggravating consideration. The court also pointed forward to Rule 1.19 of the new Rules of Professional Conduct of Puerto Rico, effective January 1, 2026, which expressly creates duties of technological competence and technological diligence and, in its commentary, states that content generated by technological means must be carefully reviewed before it is filed with a court.

Application

The referral came from a labor case, Betancourt Gómez v. Colegio de Profesionales de la Enfermería de Puerto Rico. On July 17, 2025, attorneys María V. Irizarry Centeno and Anissa M. Bonilla Irizarry signed a motion to dismiss that quoted, as though verbatim, decisions of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico. The quotations were attributed to Suárez v. CMI Caribe, to Otero-Burgos v. Inter Medical Supplies, to a case called Pérez v. Horizon Lines cited as 2020 TSPR 61, to Rosado v. ELA, to Colón v. Romero Barceló, and to Ramos Lozada v. E.L.A. Opposing counsel identified the invented citations on August 4 and asked for sanctions and fees. The next day the lawyers filed a clarifying motion conceding that some citations had been wrongly attributed because of an involuntary error in searching and selecting case law, which they blamed on the limits of consulting general internet sources, and on August 8 they filed an informative motion supplying a summary of the doctrine supported by valid citations. In their answer to the disciplinary complaint they admitted that several citations were incorrect, said their error was in the source coding and in placing quotation marks around what were not literal transcriptions, denied any intent to mislead, and expressed contrition. The trial judge, the Honorable Larissa N. Ortiz Modestti, imposed a total sanction of $1,000 under Rule 9.3 for unjustified delay and ordered the resolution sent to the Supreme Court. In weighing discipline, the Supreme Court held the effect of the conduct incompatible with the duty to uphold the image of the profession and said that signing a document containing non-existent legal citations defeats the purpose and solemnity of a lawyer's signature. It then applied its mitigation factors: neither lawyer had any prior disciplinary proceeding, they filed a corrective informative motion, they paid the trial court's $1,000 without delay, they withdrew from the representation, and they apologized and described the episode as isolated. A concurring opinion by Justice Rivera Pérez, joined by Justice Estrella Martínez, was written specifically to explain what makes this conduct sanctionable, to survey how federal courts have handled analogous situations, and to support the conclusion that on these particular facts an ethical sanction is not warranted.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico found that the lawyers had breached the principles behind Canons 18, 35, and 38, but imposed no disciplinary sanction. Exercising its inherent power to regulate the profession, it issued a formal admonition, warning both lawyers that further unethical conduct could expose them to more severe discipline including suspension from practice, and ordered the complaint archived. The only monetary consequence remains the trial court's $1,000 sanction under Rule 9.3, which is a litigation sanction rather than a disciplinary one. The opinion was delivered by Associate Justice Raúl A. Candelario López and is designated an Opinión Per Curiam; Justice Rivera Pérez concurred, joined by Justice Estrella Martínez. It is published as 2026 TSPR 41 and is written in Spanish.

Advertimos a la clase togada sobre su deber de actuar con competencia y diligencia tecnológica en todo momento, lo cual incluye el deber de validar el contenido generado mediante herramientas tecnológicas.

Opinion of the court, Candelario López, J. In English: the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico warns the bar of its duty to act with technological competence and diligence at all times, which includes the duty to validate content generated by technological tools.

procede apercibir a las promovidas respecto a que, de incurrir en conducta antiética ulterior, se podrían exponer a sanciones disciplinarias más severas, entre ellas, la suspensión de la práctica de la profesión.

Opinion of the court, Candelario López, J., stating the disposition. In English: it is appropriate to admonish the respondents that further unethical conduct could expose them to more severe discipline, including suspension from the practice of the profession.

bajo las circunstancias particulares de este caso, no se justifica imponer una sanción ética

Rivera Pérez, J., concurring, joined by Estrella Martínez, J. In English: under the particular circumstances of this case, imposing an ethical sanction is not warranted.

Why it matters. This is the contrast case. Courts in the United States mainland routinely refer lawyers who file fabricated citations to a disciplinary body, and readers often assume the referral itself is the punishment. Here the disciplinary body is the court, and it declined to sanction, which shows that prompt correction, payment of the trial court's sanction, withdrawal from the representation, and a clean record can carry real weight. It is also the first decision of its kind in Puerto Rico and it points the bar to the new Rule 1.19 duty of technological competence and diligence.

Read the full opinion on CourtListener

This summary was written from the opinion itself. Every quotation above was located in the text of the decision it is attributed to. It is a summary for public education and is not legal advice.

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