Mobley v Workday Inc

Case Information

Case name	Mobley v. Workday Inc
Court	U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
Docket	3:23-cv-00770-RFL
Filed	February 21, 2023 (original action)
Judge(s)	Rita F. Lin
Plaintiffs	Derek L. Mobley; Jill E. Hughes; Sheilah Johnson-Rocha; Faithlinh Rowe
Defendants	Workday, Inc.
Case type	Civil class and collective employment action
Claims / issues	Race, age and disability discrimination allegedly arising from automated hiring tools
Status	On July 28, 2026, the court denied relief from a discovery order concerning applicant data held in protected customer accounts.

Mobley v. Workday, Inc. (Case No. 3:23-cv-00770-RFL, N.D. Cal.) is a federal class action lawsuit alleging that Workday's AI-powered hiring and applicant screening tools discriminate against job applicants based on race, age, and disability. The case is a landmark test of whether AI tool vendors can be held liable as employers or employment agencies under federal anti-discrimination law.

On July 28, 2026, the court denied relief from a discovery order concerning applicant data held in protected customer accounts.

Parties

Plaintiff

• Derek Mobley, an African American man over 40 with anxiety and depression, who applied to 80–100 positions using Workday's platform and was rejected at a 100% rate

Defendant

• Workday, Inc., provider of AI-driven applicant screening and hiring tools used by thousands of employer clients

Core Allegations

Mobley alleges that Workday's AI-based hiring tools automatically rejected his applications, often at suspicious times like 1:50 a.m. shortly after submission — suggesting automated screening without human review. He claims the system applies biased proxy data to infer protected characteristics:

• Age bias: Graduation dates signal applicants over 40
• Race bias: Attendance at Historically Black Colleges or names associated with racial/ethnic groups
• Disability bias: Performance on neuroscience-based personality assessments reveal mental health conditions

Legal Claims

The litigation has included the following statutory theories; this historical list does not mean that every claim remains pending:

• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (race and sex discrimination)
• Section 1981
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)
• Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA)
• California FEHA claims

The June 22 order left previously dismissed claims dismissed and did not grant further leave to amend.

The central legal question is whether AI tool developers/vendors can be held liable as "employment agencies" or agents when their technology causes discriminatory outcomes, even though Workday was not the direct employer of applicants who used its platform.

The EEOC filed an amicus brief supporting Mobley's position, arguing that AI vendors who perform screening functions should be covered under anti-discrimination law.

Procedural History

First Motion to Dismiss (2023–2024)

Workday's first motion to dismiss was partially granted and partially denied.

Second Motion to Dismiss (July 2024)

On July 12, 2024, Judge Rita Lin denied Workday's second motion to dismiss in significant part:

Dismissed:

• Claims that Workday acted as an "employment agency" — the court found this theory insufficient

Allowed to Proceed:

• Disparate impact and disparate treatment claims under Title VII (race/sex), ADA (disability), ADEA (age), and FEHA
• The court adopted an "agent" liability theory — holding that Workday could be directly liable as an agent of employer-clients when its AI performs screening functions
• 100% rejection rate combined with biased training data allegations sufficient to survive dismissal

Conditional Collective Action Certification (May 2025)

On May 16, 2025, the court granted conditional certification of the collective action under the ADEA, allowing age discrimination claims to proceed on a collective basis.

Key findings:

• Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged a "unified policy" in Workday's AI recommendation system
• Workday's arguments about applicant variability did not defeat conditional certification
• The court authorized notice to potential class members and opt-in discovery
• This is conditional certification under the ADEA's collective action provision, not final Rule 23 class certification

June and July 2026 pleading orders

On June 22, 2026, the court rejected Workday's California-nexus challenge to the FEHA claims and allowed Hughes's amended ADA allegations. It dismissed Rowe's newly added race-based disparate-impact claim and claims about Workday's own hiring as unauthorized amendments. The California-nexus ruling rested on alleged development and operation of the tools in California; the court reserved the separate choice-of-law question. These were pleading rulings, not findings that Workday discriminated.

On July 1, the court adopted modified strikes, preserved Rowe's allegations concerning the automated platform, and directed a clean fourth amended complaint. The order set July 15 as the answer deadline; this article has not verified compliance or later docket activity.

Significance

Mobley v. Workday is a landmark case for AI vendor liability in employment. It could establish precedent on:

• Whether AI tool providers are "agents" of employers under federal discrimination law
• The sufficiency of statistical patterns (e.g., 100% rejection rates) to plead discrimination
• The burden of proof required to challenge AI hiring systems' training data and proxy variables
• The liability framework for companies providing AI screening tools to third-party employers
• The scope of EEOC authority over AI decision-making tools

July 28, 2026 discovery ruling

Judge Rita F. Lin upheld the magistrate judge’s refusal to compel applicant data in password-protected customer accounts, finding no clear error in the conclusion that plaintiffs had not established Workday’s possession of that data. The order distinguished aggregated anonymized statistics used by Workday itself, which were outside that exclusion.

See Also

• Employment
• Cases
• Kistler v Eightfold AI Inc — Related FCRA class action over AI hiring tools

References