Warned twice in plain English, he ran his case on AI - and paid for it
A worker who relied on AI to run his unfair dismissal claim must pay his employer's costs after pressing on despite two clear warnings.
In a decision handed down on August 19, 2026, the Fair Work Commission told the former ALDI store assistant to pay $1,230 toward the supermarket's legal bill. That is an unusual outcome in unfair dismissal cases, where each side normally covers its own costs regardless of who wins.
The dispute turned on a single date. To bring an unfair dismissal claim against a larger employer, a worker first has to complete six months on the job - the minimum employment period. The count stops on the day the employee is notified of the dismissal, not the day it takes effect or the notice period ends.
The worker started on September 29, 2025. He was told he was being dismissed on the afternoon of March 26, 2026 - three days short of six months - and lodged his claim the same night. His submissions, drafted with AI, argued the wrong date, saying his employment ran into April and so cleared the six-month mark.
The Commission raised the problem early. Two days after he filed, staff emailed to say the tribunal might have no power to hear the case. Days out from the hearing, the deputy president deciding the matter wrote to him twice on July 31, 2026. Quoting the legislation in plain English, the emails explained that it made no difference when his notice pay arrived or when the job formally ended - the date that counted was March 26, the day he was told. He was invited to withdraw and warned that continuing could expose him to a costs order. One email put it plainly: "there is a very strong likelihood that your case will not win."
He continued, sending further AI-drafted submissions on the same point. At the hearing on August 5, 2026, he conceded he had not met the minimum period and withdrew his claim. ALDI then asked for its costs of preparing for and attending a hearing it said should not have been necessary.
The deputy president found the worker had acted unreasonably by continuing after July 31, once the problem had been spelled out for him. Using AI to draft was not the issue - the decision noted the final submission was not complete "AI slop," since the cases it cited were real rather than invented. The point was that a litigant is responsible for what he files and for reading what the tribunal tells him.
The bill was held to regulated maximum rates: two hours to prepare the hearing book, plus four hours to read, prepare for and attend the hearing - $1,230 in total.
For HR teams, the case is a clean reminder of when the eligibility clock stops - the notification date, not the last day worked - which matters when weighing whether a recently hired, recently exited worker can bring a claim at all. It also fits a pattern the Commission itself noted: people running cases on wrong AI advice, sometimes at a cost to themselves.
"Unfortunately there has been no winner in this matter," the deputy president wrote. By the Commission's account, ALDI spent well beyond $1,230 defending a claim that should not have been filed, and the worker ended up $1,230 worse off than when he started.
