UK and Ireland: AI – Use by Claimants in Claims and Grievance Procedures

It is unsurprising that growing numbers of employees are using AI tools to draft tribunal claims or raise internal grievances.

This has led to submissions that are longer and more detailed, and often inaccurate or misleading, creating additional work for HR and legal teams who must still review them thoroughly.

Labour Court Claims

The risk is that AI tools such as Chat GPT will encourage more dismissed employees to bring claims against former employers, acting on their own account, without professional advice or guidance.

These claimants (possibly encouraged by AI) often throw in every possible claim type, including discrimination, sexual harassment, procedural unfairness and victimisation. Given the high penalties if such claims were to succeed, HR and Legal are obliged to take them seriously.

AI-generated submissions are often far longer than those prepared by lawyers and may include case references that are misquoted, irrelevant, or entirely fabricated. Claimants typically lack the legal expertise to critically review these documents or verify the accuracy of suggested law reports. Employers and their advisers cannot afford to rely on such material, resulting in greater time and cost burdens.

A recent Irish case offers some reassurance. In a claim against Ryanair, the claimant admitted using AI to draft parts of the submission. The Adjudicating Officer found numerous case references that were irrelevant, misquoted, non-existent, or failed to support the claimant’s position.

In dismissing all claims, the Officer said that she was not so much concerned if AI had been used. However, the parties had an obligation “to ensure that their submissions are relevant and accurate and do not set out to mislead either the other party or the Court”. A considerable amount of the defendant’s and the Court’s time had been “wasted” trying to work out if the case references were relevant. This could only be described as “an abuse of process”.  

It can only be hoped that other employment tribunals and courts, wherever located, will take a similarly robust approach to AI generated submissions that mislead and waste much time and cost.         

AI Generated Grievances

Employees increasingly use AI to help them prepare a grievance submission. As a result, these statements tend to be considerably longer than before and can become cumulatively inflated as AI encourages upgrading minor issues into more serious legal violations. This inevitably takes up more HR time investigating the grievance.   

There is also the risk that by inputting sensitive data into the AI tool, the employee has breached data protection or confidentiality rules.

Employers are required to investigate all grievances. It may not be practical to prohibit the use of AI in preparing statements, but employers should consider including in their grievance policies a declaration by the employee that the submission represents the employee’s personal view of the grievance. The policy should also remind employees that adding sensitive or personal data to an AI tool may breach their data protection and confidentiality obligations.             

This is a high-level general update only. Legal advice should be obtained on specific circumstances.