Job applicants screened by Workday’s AI hiring tools may be covered by a proposed class action alleging Workday’s HiredScore Spotlight, Fetch and Candidate Skills Match tools disfavor applicants by race, sex, age and disability. No class has been certified on those claims and there is nothing to file yet.
Allegations Only · No Settlement Yet
This article describes a pending class action lawsuit. The statements below are unproven allegations. Workday has not been found liable, no Rule 23 class has been certified, and there is nothing to claim at this time. This page is informational and is not legal advice.
What Is This About?
Mobley v. Workday, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-00770, filed in February 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that the AI tools Workday sells to employers for sorting job applicants have a disparate impact on applicants by race, sex, age and disability. Workday, which makes widely used human-resources and recruiting software, has said it believes the case is without merit.On September 14, 2026, the plaintiffs asked U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin to certify the case as a class action on behalf of applicants evaluated by three Workday tools: HiredScore Spotlight, Fetch and Candidate Skills Match. Workday’s response is due November 10, 2026, and the court has set a hearing on the motion for March 9, 2027 in San Francisco.
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What the Lawsuit Alleges About Workday’s AI
The class certification motion argues that Workday did not build a separate screening system for each customer. Instead, it alleges, Workday built one set of machine-learning models, trained them on historical hiring data and deployed them across its customer base to score, rank and sort applicants. Because a model trained on past hiring decisions can learn the disparities in those decisions, the motion says, any bias in Workday’s models would reach every applicant they evaluate, regardless of which employer posted the job.The motion describes three tools. HiredScore Spotlight scores and ranks applicants for recruiters; Fetch searches for and recommends candidates, including people who did not apply for the opening; and Candidate Skills Match matches applicants to openings using skill data. The plaintiffs rely on reports from three experts, including statistical analyses, and on Workday’s own bias evaluations of its tools, parts of which Workday has asked the court to keep under seal.
The claims are disparate impact claims: they do not allege that Workday set out to discriminate, but that its tools produce outcomes that fall more heavily on protected groups. They are brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. Workday denies the claims, and none of the allegations has been proven.
Who Is in the Proposed Class?
The motion proposes one class made up of four subclasses. The class covers people who have been or will be subject to Workday’s AI-based recruitment, screening, ranking or recommendation tools, including the three named above, and who either were not surfaced or selected by those tools for a job, submitted an application that the tools scored or processed, or intend to apply for jobs where the tools are likely to be used.The four subclasses are African-American applicants, female applicants, an age subclass under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, and applicants with disabilities. The plaintiffs ask the court to certify the class for both injunctive relief and damages. No class has been certified, and the definitions can change or be rejected at the certification stage.
How the Case Got Here
In July 2024, Judge Lin let the core claims proceed on the theory that Workday could be liable as an agent of the employers that use its tools, rather than only as a software vendor. In May 2025, she preliminarily certified a nationwide collective of applicants age 40 and older under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act, a separate opt-in procedure that Workday may later ask the court to decertify.Two rulings in 2026 shaped the current claims. On March 6, the court granted in part and denied in part a Workday motion to dismiss and strike, and allowed an amended complaint. On June 22, it let the California Fair Employment and Housing Act claims proceed, finding enough of a connection to California because the tools are alleged to be designed and controlled from Workday’s California headquarters, while dismissing one new race claim and striking a new theory that Workday was liable as the applicants’ employer.
Other AI hiring cases are moving through the courts at the same time. A separate suit alleges Eightfold AI furnished consumer reports on job applicants without Fair Credit Reporting Act protections, and HireVue agreed to the $3.75 million HireVue biometric privacy settlement over its video interview software.
What Happens Next
Workday’s opposition to class certification is due November 10, 2026, and the plaintiffs’ reply is due December 8, 2026. Judge Lin is scheduled to hear the motion on March 9, 2027 at 10 a.m. in Courtroom 15 of the San Francisco federal courthouse. Discovery disputes over depositions and data are being handled by Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler.If the court certifies a class, class members would receive a court-approved notice describing the case and their options. Any money for applicants would depend on a later judgment or settlement, and none has been reached.
Questions
Who would be in the proposed Workday class?
The motion filed September 14, 2026 proposes a class of people who were, or will be, run through Workday’s AI-based screening and candidate-selection tools and who were not selected or surfaced by those tools, whose applications were processed by them, or who intend to apply for jobs where the tools are used. Within that class it proposes four subclasses: African-American applicants, female applicants, an age subclass under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, and applicants with disabilities. The court has not certified any of them.
Which Workday AI tools does the lawsuit challenge?
The class certification motion names HiredScore Spotlight, Fetch and Candidate Skills Match. It alleges Workday built one set of machine-learning models, trained them on historical hiring data and deployed them across its customers to score, rank and sort applicants, so that any bias in the models would reach every applicant they evaluate. These are allegations; no court has found that the tools are biased.
Is this the same as the age-discrimination collective action against Workday?
It is the same lawsuit, but a different track. In May 2025 the court preliminarily certified a nationwide collective under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which works by opting in. The September 2026 motion asks the court to certify a Rule 23 class on disparate impact claims under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, including a separate age subclass under California law.
When will the judge decide whether the Workday case becomes a class action?
Not before March 9, 2027, when U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin is scheduled to hear the motion in San Francisco. Under the docketed schedule, Workday’s opposition is due November 10, 2026 and the plaintiffs’ reply is due December 8, 2026. A ruling could come at or after the hearing.
Sources
• Plaintiffs’ Motion for Class Certification, Mobley v. Workday, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-00770 (N.D. Cal.), Dkt. 418 (September 14, 2026)• Mobley v. Workday, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-00770 (N.D. Cal.), docket via CourtListener, including the March 6, 2026 order on Workday’s motion to dismiss and strike (Dkt. 267)
• Order granting preliminary collective certification (May 2025), via Courthouse News
• Duane Morris Class Action Defense Blog, “California Federal Court Grants In Part And Denies In Part Workday’s Motion To Dismiss In Mobley v. Workday” (June 24, 2026)
• CNN, “Lawsuit claims discrimination by Workday’s hiring tech prevented people over 40 from getting hired” (May 22, 2025)
