What was hallucinated

Outdated Advice: Repealed Law | Cited Policy D3-115-1 as recognizing late prohibited action complaints; tribunal found D3-115-1 is not a current Prevention Manual policy and does not support the asserted proposition. || Fabricated: Case Law | Provided a 2019-format citation that, when searched in WCAT's current A- format, corresponded to an unrelated appeal (the cited case did not support the worker's point). || Fabricated: Case Law | Included at least one case citation that appears not to exist and was likely fabricated by AI. || Misrepresented: Case Law | Cited WCAT decisions purportedly supporting late filings; first cited decision had nothing to do with late filings or the topic for which it was cited.

Sanction teardown · BC Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal, Canada · 2025-08-18

WCAT Decision A2501051 (Hilary Thomson)

What happened

In BC Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal, Canada, 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:

Outdated Advice (Repealed Law)

Cited Policy D3-115-1 as recognizing late prohibited action complaints; tribunal found D3-115-1 is not a current Prevention Manual policy and does not support the asserted proposition.
Fabricated (Case Law)

Provided a 2019-format citation that, when searched in WCAT's current A- format, corresponded to an unrelated appeal (the cited case did not support the worker's point).
Fabricated (Case Law)

Included at least one case citation that appears not to exist and was likely fabricated by AI.
Misrepresented (Case Law)

Cited WCAT decisions purportedly supporting late filings; first cited decision had nothing to do with late filings or the topic for which it was cited.

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/927/A2501051_Re_Canada_18_August_2025.pdf, via Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).

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