I highly doubt the judge was tracking down citations or reading those cited cases herself to verify what was in them. They have law clerks for that. It doesn’t make it any less an egregious waste of the court’s time and resources, but I would be surprised if a district court judge is personally doing much, if any, of that sort of spadework.

Ok, now do this for every other mistake type mentioned in the article, and you've got yourself a case!

First, you're confusing time with money

Second, the mistakes weren't just incorrect citations any paralegal could check

Courts are not allocated an unlimited budget for clerks.

Outside of the literal dollar cost, the opportunity cost here is further delays on the docket because the clerk was unable to do something else, and the court time that must now be spent dealing with the issue.