(Editor’s note: This blog is the last of a three-part series about artificial intelligence in California workers’ compensation.)

Donald R. Barthel

If there is one appellate decision every California claims professional should memorize this year, it’s Quinteros v. Harbor Distributing LLC.

No, it’s not a workers’ compensation case. But it is a terrifying preview of what happens when lawyers treat AI like a legal magic wand.

In Quinteros, attorneys submitted court filings packed with nonexistent appellate decisions and fabricated quotes. When caught, they attempted the classic modern defense: blaming their legal research software.

The 1st District Court of Appeal was profoundly unimpressed. The justices held that the lawyers had “fundamentally abdicated their responsibility to the court and to their client.” The court felt obligated to remind the attorneys of a basic concept usually covered in week one of law school: human lawyers sign briefs; websites, algorithms and computer applications do not.

The court slapped them with $6,000 in monetary sanctions ($5,000 to opposing counsel and $1,000 to the court). But honestly, the cash was the easy part.

The real nightmare was the nonmonetary punishment:

• The attorneys were ordered to deliver a copy of the sanctions order to the presiding judge in their related Los Angeles cases.
• They were required to hand-deliver the order to every single judge in San Francisco Superior Court before whom they appeared for an entire year.
• The appellate court reported them directly to the State Bar of California for violations of Duty of Honesty (Bus. & Prof. Code § 6068(d)), Candor Toward the Tribunal (Rule 3.3), and Duty of Competence (Rule 1.1).

Imagine handing every judge you see for a year a formal court order admitting you filed fake law. That isn’t just embarrassing; it’s a career-ending parade of shame.

Does this apply to the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board? Absolutely. Workers’ compensation litigation relies on credibility more than almost any other venue. A workers’ compensation judge’s credibility findings are virtually bulletproof on appeal.

Picture your defense attorney standing up to argue medical apportionment. Before she can speak, applicant’s counsel stands up and says, “Your Honor, before we begin, the defense brief cites three appellate decisions that do not exist in the state of California.”

Game over. Nobody is talking about apportionment anymore. Nobody cares about the QME report. The WCJ is now eyeing your attorney like a high-stakes auditor, scrutinizing every single sentence in your file and dragging a simple hearing out for three months. Settlement value just went through the floor.

A legal reputation can take dozens of years of grueling work to build, 30 seconds of laziness to destroy, and so long to repair that you’ll start researching witness protection programs just to get a fresh start.

Surviving college, grinding through law school, passing the hardest bar exam in the nation and building a practice — only to throw it all in the trash because you couldn’t be bothered to double-check an AI output? That’s not efficiency. That’s a Greek tragedy with a billing code.

The best defense attorneys won’t just use AI; they will audit it, double-check it, and refuse to let laziness replace competence.

Donald R. Barthel is a founding partner of Bradford and Barthel and is based in the firm’s Sacramento office. This entry from Bradford & Barthel's blog appears with permission.