Aragon v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office

What did the court warn about?

In a published opinion (2026 COA 56) by Judge Lipinsky, with Judges Yun and Schutz concurring, the division affirmed the Panel's order. It held that section 8-43-301(11) does not permit the Panel to extend the sixty-day deadline, that the Director did not abuse his discretion in finding no "activity in furtherance of prosecution," and that Aragon's due process and remaining arguments failed. On the misquotations, the division wrote: "Although we decline to enter sanctions against Aragon's counsel for these misrepresentations, Aragon's counsel is hereby placed on notice that providing false quotations -- whether generated by an artificial intelligence tool or otherwise -- in future appellate submissions may result in sanctions." It cited Al-Hamim v. Star Hearthstone, LLC, 2024 COA 128, for the points that submitting a brief with false citations violates C.A.R. 28(a)(7)(B) and that the court may impose sanctions under C.A.R. 38(a) and 39.1, and it quoted Colo. RPC 3.3(a)(1). No sanction was imposed.

Why does Aragon v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office matter for law firms using AI?

The division’s treatment of the misquotations is brief and comes at the end of its analysis of whether the Director abused his discretion in closing Aragon’s claim. The opinion describes a single example in detail: a quotation, attributed to Pinkstaff v. Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc., about the governmental interest in motions to close under WCRP 7-1(C). The division observed that “Pinkstaff is not a workers’ compensation case, it does not contain the quoted text, and it does not cite the WCRP,” and added that counsel “misquotes several other cases in Aragon’s opening brief” without identifying them.

The division chose notice over sanction. It wrote that it “decline[d] to enter sanctions against Aragon’s counsel for these misrepresentations” but placed counsel “on notice that providing false quotations — whether generated by an artificial intelligence tool or otherwise — in future appellate submissions may result in sanctions.” The opinion makes no finding about how the quotations were produced; the reference to artificial intelligence is part of the warning, not a finding about this brief. The division grounded the warning in Al-Hamim v. Star Hearthstone, LLC, 2024 COA 128, and Colo. RPC 3.3(a)(1).

The warning appears in a published opinion that also decided a question the division called novel: whether the Industrial Claim Appeals Office may extend the sixty-day period in section 8-43-301(11). Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that, in this case, the court treated false quotations as a matter for notice to counsel regardless of their source, and tied any future consequence to the Colorado Appellate Rules and the duty of candor.