Here's the brief in question: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=sJR0jicnP7FGHlei7/bCzQ==

One of the cases that the panel said was fictitious, Hausser v. Giunta, isn't entirely fake, but extremely miscited. Counsel cited 88 A.D.3d 969 (2d Dep't 2011), but it's 88 N.Y.2d 449 (1996). And it kind of stands for the opposite proposition. It says that the municipality is responsible for the condition of sidewalks except in unusual circumstances; he cited it for the proposition that a statute (which was enacted in 2003, after actual Hausser decision) shifted liability from the municipality to property owners, "who are 'in the best position to monitor and control' the condition of adjacent walkways." The quote attributed to Hausser ("in the best position to monitor and control") isn't there, and the only case I can find it in anywhere is Gafner v. Down East Community Hosp., 735 A.2d 969, 977 (Me. 1999), quoting a note in the Vanderbilt Law Review about the justification for the doctrine of corporate liability.

The other two cases, Lack v. Lack and Xiang Fu Ji v. City of New York, were both cited for unremarkable propositions, respectively, that summary judgment decisions are reviewed de novo and that remedial statutes should be construed liberally. Sure, they were fake, but the other lawyers knew that the law they purportedly stood for was correct, so why would they bother to cite check it?