Topics: AI in the Workplace, Court Decisions, Employee Hiring, Discipline & Termination
By: Dan M. Forman, Linda Wang
As businesses integrate AI tools into operations, a spike in related litigation is no surprise, especially due to the lack of formal legal precedent. Last month, a federal court in the Northern District of California provided some much-needed guidance when it granted a motion to preliminarily certify a collective in a lawsuit alleging that an AI-based applicant screening system discriminated against individuals aged 40 and older.
In Mobley v. Workday, Inc., the plaintiffs claimed they received hundreds of rejections without interviews after applying for jobs through Workday—a provider of human resource management software, including platforms connecting employers with job applicants. According to the plaintiffs, Workday’s AI-driven applicant filtering algorithm disproportionately disqualified individuals over 40 from employment opportunities.
Plaintiffs sought preliminary certification of a nationwide collective under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), proposing a collective of “All individuals aged 40 and over who, from September 24, 2020, through the present, applied for job opportunities using Workday, Inc.’s job application platform and were denied employment recommendations.”
Workday opposed certification on several grounds, arguing: (i) it does not offer “employment recommendations,” and therefore no applicants belong to the...
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