A human resources worker who “swamped” the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) with 15 weeks of “updates” on her employment dispute for has been told to draw up new legal submissions for her employment tribunal claim after she admitted using “AI assistance” to put her case together.

At the Workplace Relations Commission on Thursday, her former employer’s barrister said the claimant’s legal papers referenced some real cases, but misquoted them – while he said he and his instructing solicitors had been unable to find others.

“It seems they may be hallucinations,” he said.

The worker, Jadene Maclou, has alleged penalisation in breach of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 against her former employer, Virtuoso Learning Ltd, operator of an e-learning business called Kubicle.

Representing herself at a remote hearing, Ms Maclou said that she was subject to a “clear pattern of penalisation” for speaking out about matters at the business, and argues these amounted to four distinct protected disclosures. She quit her job there last September, she said.

At the opening of the case, Jason Murray BL, appearing for the employer instructed by Nathalie King of RDJ LLP, said Ms Maclou had filed one claim under the Protected Disclosures Act, and had then proceeded to make “15 further submissions to the WRC and the respondent”.

There were also references to past rulings by the WRC in Ms Maclou’s papers, he said. “Some of those we simply can’t find; it seems they may be hallucinations,” he said. “The law is not quoted as per the cases,” he said of other legal citations.

“We’ve no issue with the tools being used, but there is an onus on a party presenting a case to make sure the cases actually exist,” Mr Murray said.

He asked adjudicator Penelope McGrath to direct the complainant to produce “a concise statement, no more than five to seven pages” summarising her position and the law she was relying on.

The adjudicator asked: “Ms Maclou, have you been getting a bit of AI assistance putting your case together?”

“Of course, I’m just one person,” the complainant replied.

“The problem is, if you’re trying to get case law to back up your point, the burden is on you,” the adjudicator said. “It’s not fair on the other side to send them off on a wild-goose chase for cases that don’t exist,” she added.

One disclosure was on “equality and pay compliance” when “one person was paid paternity leave and one was not”; while another related to a data protection matter, Ms Maclou said.

She added that she had identified a third issue in relation to contractors being “disguised” as employees.

Mr Murray said he was “not on notice” of these matters and it was “not appropriate” to air them publicly.

Ms Maclou said she wanted to press on with the matter on the basis that all her legal submissions except for one document filed in August 2025 could be set aside.

Mr Murray said he had a concern that this too was “AI-generated” as he said it wrongly referenced a 2023 constructive dismissal case as a protected disclosure penalisation matter.

Ms McGrath said the complainant had “almost swamped the file with information” by filing weekly “updates”. Ms Maclou said she had been “told by the WRC to do so by phone”.

“I don’t think we’re in a position to proceed today. With the greatest of respect, the file is a bit of a mess,” Ms McGrath said.

She told Ms Maclou she was to “take a look” at her August 2025 submission and “re-edit” it.

The adjudicator adjourned the matter until the end of February for the exchange of new legal submissions.