AI hiring lawsuits: Mobley v. Workday and the other cases employers should know

The leading AI hiring lawsuit is Mobley v. Workday (N.D. Cal. No. 3:23-cv-00770), which alleges that Workday's AI applicant recommendation system discriminated by race, age and disability. As of October 2026 the court has let disparate impact claims proceed against Workday as an "agent" of employers, preliminarily certified a nationwide age discrimination collective, and set a March 9, 2027 hearing on the plaintiffs' motion to certify a class; no court has found Workday liable. Other cases to know: an FCRA class action against Eightfold AI (motion to dismiss pending), a race discrimination suit over Sirius XM's use of iCIMS tools (dismissed without prejudice in September 2026), and earlier cases against iTutorGroup, CVS and HireVue that ended in settlement or dismissal.

Every status below comes from the court's own docket or the agency's release, linked. Allegations in a complaint are claims, not findings.

Which AI hiring lawsuits matter, and where do they stand?

What is Mobley v. Workday about, and what has the court decided?

Derek Mobley, who describes himself as an African American man over forty with anxiety and depression, alleges that, applying through employers that use Workday, he was rejected from more than one hundred jobs he was qualified for. The key rulings, all by Judge Rita F. Lin:

1. July 12, 2024: the "agent" ruling. On Workday's motion to dismiss, the court held that under Title VII, the ADEA and the ADA "a third-party agent may be liable as an employer where the agent has been delegated functions traditionally exercised by an employer," and that the complaint plausibly alleged Workday's software was "participating in the decision-making process by recommending some candidates to move forward and rejecting others." It dismissed the theory that Workday was an "employment agency" and the intentional discrimination claims, leaving the disparate impact claims to proceed.
2. May 16, 2025: the age collective. The court granted preliminary certification of a nationwide ADEA collective of "all individuals aged 40 and over who, from September 24, 2020, through the present," applied through Workday's platform and were denied employment, finding the alleged "unified policy" was the use of Workday's AI recommendation system "to score, sort, rank, or screen applicants." Workday can still move to decertify.
3. July 29, 2025: HiredScore included. The court ruled that, at the preliminary stage, the collective covers applicants scored, sorted, ranked or screened using the AI features of HiredScore, a product Workday acquired after the complaint was filed.
4. September 14, 2026: class certification motion. The plaintiffs moved to certify a class with African American, female, age and disability subclasses, covering applicants processed by Workday tools including HiredScore/Spotlight, Fetch and Candidate Skills Match. Workday's opposition is due November 10, 2026, and the hearing is set for March 9, 2027. Opt-in plaintiffs' discovery responses are due to be complete by November 30, 2026.

For how disparate impact claims work against a selection tool, and what changed at the EEOC in 2025 and 2026, see Title VII disparate impact and AI hiring tools.

Why was the case against Sirius XM dismissed?

Harper v. Sirius XM shows what a court can require at the pleading stage. Arshon Harper alleged that Sirius XM used iCIMS's applicant tracking system and AI/ML features that relied on proxies for race, such as schools, employment history and zip codes. On September 30, 2026, Judge Terrence G. Berg granted judgment on the pleadings, finding the complaint did not provide "any comparator class from which to gauge whether an impact was disparate" and did not allege how the tools collected racial data about him or how it affected his applications. The court added that "data collection is not the same thing as data discrimination." The dismissal was without prejudice; no later filing appeared on the docket as of October 2026.

Can AI hiring vendors be treated as consumer reporting agencies?

That is the question in Kistler v. Eightfold AI. The applicants filed in California state court on January 20, 2026, and Eightfold removed the case to federal court on March 2, 2026. The complaint claims violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, California's Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act and California's Unfair Competition Law. Eightfold's removal notice disputes the premise, calling the FCRA "a statute enacted decades ago to regulate a materially different industry." Eightfold moved to dismiss on April 20, 2026; the court vacated the August hearing and may decide on the papers. If the theory succeeds, employers using such tools could face the disclosure, authorization and adverse action duties described in the FCRA background check process.

What did the earlier AI hiring cases decide?

• EEOC v. iTutorGroup (age cutoffs in software). The EEOC alleged the company programmed its tutor application software to automatically reject female applicants aged 55 or older and male applicants aged 60 or older, rejecting more than 200 qualified US applicants. The September 11, 2023 settlement included $365,000, anti-discrimination training and policies, and at least five years of EEOC monitoring.
• Baker v. CVS (video interviews and a lie detector law). The plaintiff alleged that a HireVue interview used by CVS was a lie detector test under Massachusetts law, and that CVS failed to give the notice the statute requires. Judge Patti B. Saris denied CVS's motions to dismiss on February 16, 2024; the parties settled, and the case was dismissed with prejudice in September 2024. Settlement terms are not on the docket.
• Deyerler v. HireVue (biometrics). Plaintiffs alleged HireVue collected, stored and disseminated biometrics through its automated video interview platform in violation of Illinois' BIPA. After private mediation, the parties stipulated to dismissal without prejudice, and the case closed on January 21, 2026.

Are AI note takers being sued too?

Yes, though not over hiring decisions. In In re Otter.AI Privacy Litigation (N.D. Cal. No. 5:25-cv-06911), plaintiffs allege Otter's notetaker joined meetings and recorded participants without everyone's consent; the court granted Otter's motion to dismiss in part on August 13, 2026, and the case continues. It matters for interviews because a note taker records the candidate; see candidates bringing AI note takers to interviews and is it legal to use AI note takers in interviews.

What should employers using AI hiring tools do now?

1. Inventory every tool that scores, ranks, filters or rejects, including features switched on inside your applicant tracking system. Mobley turned on what the tools do, not what they are called.
2. Test for adverse impact on your own data, by race, sex and age at least. Harper was dismissed partly for lack of comparative data; you want that data before anyone else does. See the four-fifths rule.
3. Ask vendors in writing how the tool was validated, what adverse impact testing they ran and how often, and whether they consider themselves a consumer reporting agency. The disparate impact guide lists the questions.
4. Keep a human decision you can explain for every rejection that matters, and record the reason.
5. Check notice and consent laws for video and voice tools: biometric laws such as BIPA, and state laws like the Massachusetts statute at issue in Baker.
6. Track state AI hiring rules, which add notice and audit duties of their own; see AI hiring laws by state.
7. Review contracts for audit rights, data use, and who bears the cost if a tool is challenged.