Employment Court notes apparent use of GenAI
In LMN v STC [2025] NZEmpC 46, the plaintiff sought (a) variation of an order for security for costs and (b) leave to make further submissions. In the course of allowing (a) (and declining (b)), the Employment Court observed:
“[8] The plaintiff in her submissions refers to the Court’s judgment in ‘Fowlie v Stonex (No 2) [2015] NZEmpC 94 at [18]’ in support of the proposition that the Court will take financial constraints into account when making procedural rulings. However, no such case exists, and the plaintiff is reminded that information provided by generative artificial intelligence ought to be checked before being relied on in documents filed in court proceedings.2
“2 Courts of New Zealand ‘Guidelines for Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Courts and Tribunals: Non-lawyers’ (7 December 2023) <www.courtsofnz.govt.nz>.”
Those guidelines, along with corresponding guidance for lawyers and for judicial officers/support staff, are available at Courts of New Zealand “Guidelines for use of generative artificial intelligence in Courts and Tribunals” <www.courtsofnz.govt.nz>.
This appears to be the third time that the use of GenAI has been noted by the decision maker in New Zealand legal proceedings (see Wikeley v Kea Investments Ltd [2024] NZCA 609 at [199] n 187 and DK (Skilled Migrant) v Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment [2025] NZIPT 207134 at [28]–[29] for previous instances).
Kevin Leary is a Senior Legal Editor in the New Zealand Analytical Law team at Thomson Reuters. He has more than 20 years' experience as an editor of bound books, looseleafs, precedents and their digital equivalents.