Carrington v TAFE Queensland
Queensland IRC · Dec 5, 2025
- Jurisdiction
- international
- Court
- Queensland IRC
- Record ID
- carrington-v-tafe-queensland-2025-12-05
- Observed outcome
- The Commission set aside the disciplinary decision against the Appellant and ordered the Respondent to issue a fresh decision letter complying with statutory and procedural requirements.
- Known monetary consequence
- Not recorded
Why this matter warrants attention
The Queensland Industrial Relations Commission identified that the Appellant submitted two fabricated case citations in her written submissions, likely generated by an AI search engine. The Commission explicitly disregarded these authorities, warned the parties about the risks of using AI for legal research without verification, and ultimately set aside the underlying disciplinary decision on separate procedural grounds.
Fabricated: Case Law | Appellant cited 'Coleman v State of Queensland [2021] QIRC 243'; the court found that [2021] QIRC 243 corresponds to Chan & Ors v State of Queensland and could not locate the asserted authority as cited. || Fabricated: Case Law | Appellant cited 'McLennan v State of Queensland [2022] QIRC 123'; the court could not locate a decision with McLennan as a party and noted [2022] QIRC 123 is Da Silva Rocha v State of Queensland (No 2).
Neutral-citation numbers that point to different cases are a tell — cross-check every QIRC/neutral citation against the actual decision.
Failure modes and consequences
- Hallucinated_case_law
- Failure_to_verify_citations
- Fake Citations
- Employment
- Trial
- None Adjudicated
- AI attribution
- Implied
- Recorded tool
- AI search engine (unspecified)
- Known monetary consequence
- Not recorded
- Procedural posture
- Public Service Appeal determined on the papers pursuant to s 451(1) of the Industrial Relations Act 2016 (Qld).
Damien Charlotin case archive
Publisher document archive. The recorded document is hosted in the upstream publisher archive.
Open underlying sourceA recorded source link is not a substitute for checking the underlying order, filing, opinion, or disciplinary record.
What this record does—and does not—establish
The Commission attributed the errors to an AI search engine.
Retained unchanged after audit: the existing summary is source-specific, non-placeholder, and supported by the recorded source link. Read the underlying source before relying on it for legal advice or a filing.
Latest evidence review: Primary Document Verified (high confidence).
Controls suggested by the public record
- Verify each cited authority, quotation, and proposition against the underlying source before filing.
- Do not treat a paid legal-research product as a substitute for source verification.
- Retain a matter-level record of source checks and corrections.