Imagine watching your beloved family home go up in a blaze right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. The amount of fear and stress that a person must go through during an experience like that is probably unimaginable. Except that was just the tip of the iceberg for Fa’alagilagi Meni-Siliga, who alleges that the real horrors came later when delays with the repairs caused her to lose her life savings as well as her home.
According to CalMatters, Meni-Siliga filed a lawsuit against those involved with the repairs of her home after the 2020 fire. She named several different people and businesses as part of the complaint, including State Farm, which she alleges used AI to defend itself in legal filings about the fire.
Meni-Siliga’s lawyers claim that State Farm’s filings contain hallucinations from the AI program they used, which produced fake cases and quotes as part of their arguments.
This lawsuit comes as many in the legal industry are using AI as part of their everyday workflow, creating the potential for more issues like this in the future.
Meni-Siliga Says State Farm’s Response to the Fire Cost Her Family Everything
CalMatters says that Meni-Siliga is suing the insurance company, the contractor responsible for the repairs to her home, the contractor’s insurance company, and a public adjuster for the loss of her home. According to her, repairs were started after the 2020 fire made her Los Angeles County home uninhabitable back in 2020.
However, a storm during the repairs caused additional damage to the property, further delaying the work. Meni-Siliga claims that State Farm then dragged its feet approving the additional repairs to the home, which left the work incomplete.
“My family and I have lost forever our family home,” Meni-Siliga wrote in the court documents after explaining how she and her husband did everything they could while waiting for the work to be done, including emptying their retirement and savings accounts. “We do not come from money… It took many years and sacrifice for our family to purchase our home.”
Eventually, Meni-Siliga and her husband had to file for bankruptcy, later losing their home to foreclosure.
Lawyers Found Evidence of AI Hallucinations in State Farm’s Filings
As State Farm fought back against the lawsuit, Meni-Siliga’s lawyer said he found evidence of AI in the filings, saying the insurance company used “cases that do not exist, quotes that do not exist, and holdings that do not exist” in the legal documents.
But that’s not the only place people allege State Farm is relying on AI. According to Insurance Business Magazine, State Farm was at the center of a 2025 federal lawsuit filed in Alabama that claims the insurance agency is using AI in a way that Gregory and Annette Kelly of Montgomery, Alabama, claim is targeting and discriminating against claims made by elderly, disabled Black homeowners.
That’s unlikely to do much to help Meni-Siliga deal with the loss of her family’s home, but it may change the way that some companies embrace AI to handle sensitive situations like insurance claims.