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An employer has won a costs order against an HR business partner, who persisted with challenging his serious misconduct sacking via "incoherent" claims containing AI hallucinations.

"[T]his proceeding was always doomed to fail because it lacked merit, and I am comfortably satisfied that the [HRBP] instituted the proceeding without reasonable cause," Federal Court Justice Michael Wheelahan said.

The Stantec Australia HRBP was sacked for serious misconduct in March 2025. Specifically, the employer accused him of: "unrelenting coercive control and predatory sexual behaviour" towards female workers; attempting to contact one of them after she complained about him; and doctoring a text message so it appeared to show a colleague apologising for making her own allegations.

As reported by HR Daily in August 2025, Fair Work Commission Deputy President Ian Masson found the second and third of these were valid dismissal reasons, and the employee's denials were undermined by his "patently false", "unsubstantiated" and at times "misogynistic" claims...