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Howe v. NSW Department of Education

Court
NSW Industrial Relations Commission
Jurisdiction
Australia
Decided
2025-09-17
AI tool
Implied
Outcome
—
Monetary penalty
None reported

What was hallucinated

Fabricated: Case Law | A cited authority could not be located and was treated by the Respondent as entirely fictional; the Commission redacted the citation to avoid propagation. || Misrepresented: Case Law | Applicant relied on Nulty v Blue Star Group Pty Ltd [2011] FWAFB 975 but was said to have mischaracterised its outcome (Nulty did not result in an extension of time). || Misrepresented: Case Law | A second Fair Work Commission decision was cited with an incorrect title; the Commission located the decision but found the Applicant's description and reliance were inaccurate.

Sanction teardown · NSW Industrial Relations Commission, Australia · 2025-09-17

Howe v. NSW Department of Education

What happened

In NSW Industrial Relations Commission, Australia, a filing relied on an unnamed/unconfirmed AI tool to help draft legal argument. The court identified the following problems with the citations in that filing:

  • Fabricated (Case Law)
    A cited authority could not be located and was treated by the Respondent as entirely fictional; the Commission redacted the citation to avoid propagation.
  • Misrepresented (Case Law)
    Applicant relied on Nulty v Blue Star Group Pty Ltd [2011] FWAFB 975 but was said to have mischaracterised its outcome (Nulty did not result in an extension of time).
  • Misrepresented (Case Law)
    A second Fair Work Commission decision was cited with an incorrect title; the Commission located the decision but found the Applicant's description and reliance were inaccurate.

Which AI tool

an unnamed/unconfirmed AI tool. Note: Charlotin's public database records tool attribution only where a court order, brief, or reporting on the matter states it explicitly; "unidentified" or "implied" means the record indicates AI use but does not name a specific product — we do not guess.

Outcome

Not specified in source record.

How Citation Safe would have caught this

Citation Safe runs three deterministic layers before a brief is filed: (1) does the citation exist against CourtListener's database of published opinions, (2) if quoted, does that exact language appear in the source, (3) does the cited case actually support the proposition it is cited for. Fabricated case citations fail Layer 1. Fabricated or misattributed quotations fail Layer 2 even when the underlying case is real. Misrepresented holdings — a real case cited for a proposition it does not support — are the target of Layer 3. None of these checks involve asking another language model whether the citation looks right; they are lookups and text-matches against the actual source, which is why a hallucinated citation has to survive a direct lookup against the authoritative source — not another model's opinion — to earn a VERIFIED stamp; our measured false-verify rate is published live at /quality.

Check a brief before you file it → · See our live false-verify rate

Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/819/HOWE_v_SECRETARY_NEW_SOUTH_WALES_DEPARTMENT_OF_EDUCATION_2025.pdf, via Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).

Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/819/HOWE_v_SECRETARY_NEW_SOUTH_WALES_DEPARTMENT_OF_EDUCATION_2025.pdf

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