{"id":124318,"date":"2025-10-15T19:38:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T19:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/124318\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T19:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T19:38:12","slug":"ryanair-flight-attendant-used-alleged-ai-generated-legal-papers-in-e170000-discrimination-claim-wrc-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/124318\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryanair flight attendant used alleged AI-generated legal papers in \u20ac170,000 discrimination claim, WRC hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alleged AI-generated<\/a> legal papers \u201crife\u201d with references to irrelevant, misquoted and non-existent rulings which were filed by a Ryanair <\/a>flight attendant in a \u20ac170,000 discrimination claim were \u201can abuse of process\u201d, an employment tribunal has found. <\/p>\n

Rejecting a discrimination complaint against the airline in a decision published on Wednesday, a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC)<\/a> adjudicator wrote that the claimant \u201cwasted\u201d her time and the airline\u2019s chasing down his \u201cphantom citations\u201d. <\/p>\n

Flight attendant Fernando Oliveira, a Portuguese national, had accused Ryanair DAC of subjecting him to discrimination on the grounds of race and family status in breach of the Employment Equality Act 1998. <\/p>\n

The complaint \u2013 in which Mr Oliveira was seeking \u20ac170,000 in compensation \u2013 was denied by the airline. <\/p>\n

The tribunal heard Ryanair stopped short of dismissing Mr Oliveira last autumn, handing him a final written warning and a paid suspension after investigating a series of complaints against him from other crew. <\/p>\n

Mr Oliveira, a Ryanair employee since 2022, alleged he had been falsely accused by his supervisor of, among other things, drinking on the job, making racist comments and threatening another flight attendant from late 2023. <\/p>\n

Later, he said, he was subjected to an \u201corchestrated campaign\u201d of \u201cfalse reports\u201d by that supervisor\u2019s colleagues \u2013 including that he allegedly wished her \u201cdead\u201d \u2013 for which he was handed a final written warning and a paid suspension. <\/p>\n

Ryanair\u2019s legal team said Mr Oliveira continued to \u201cagitate\u201d on the matter after his internal appeal to the disciplinary appeal was rejected. The airline argued the equality claim was an \u201cabuse of process\u201d and should be thrown out without a full hearing. <\/p>\n

Roland Rowan, appearing for Ryanair instructed by solicitor Killian O\u2019Reilly of Fieldfisher Ireland, told the WRC at an initial hearing in March this year that it seemed to him Mr Oliveira\u2019s legal filings \u201cmay have been generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said seven citations referenced by the claimant in the papers \u201cdo not appear to give the outcome\u201d Mr Oliveira relied upon.<\/p>\n

This included a 2016 Equality Tribunal ruling in which Mr Olivera said \u20ac15,000 was awarded for a breach of equality legislation when in fact the case was \u201cdismissed for want of jurisdiction\u201d, Mr Rowan submitted. <\/p>\n

Counsel also pointed out that Mr Oliveira had quoted what looked like two WRC adjudication reference numbers in the papers, but that these seemed to be \u201cphantom determinations\u201d. <\/p>\n

Mr Oliveira called the \u201cinsinuation\u201d that he used AI to prepare his legal papers a \u201cbaseless, unprofessional and ad hominem attack designed to distract from the merits of the case\u201d. <\/p>\n

Adjudicator Patricia Owens noted that when the case was called again for hearing, Mr Oliveira \u201cacknowledged that he may have used AI\u201d and \u201cbecame defensive\u201d about it. <\/p>\n

She wrote in her decision that Mr Oliveira \u201cwasted a considerable amount of time\u201d with submissions that were \u201crife with citations that were not relevant, misquoted and, in many instances, non-existent\u201d. <\/p>\n

Ms Owens wrote that she was \u201cnot particularly concerned\u201d about whether Mr Oliveira used AI nor not but that parties at the WRC were obliged to make \u201crelevant and accurate\u201d submissions which \u201cdo not set out to mislead\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe complainant\u2019s attempts to bring in new allegations and claims late in the day and to seek to rely on phantom citations to support his claims can only be described as egregious and an abuse of process,\u201d she concluded. <\/p>\n

As the complainant had not established an inference of discrimination or shown any \u201ccogent evidence\u201d to back up his claims of victimisation, harassment or sexual harassment, she dismissed his complaint. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alleged AI-generated legal papers \u201crife\u201d with references to irrelevant, misquoted and non-existent rulings which were filed by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[289,79,18,19,17,623,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-124318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-ryanair","14":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}