Friday, July 12, 2024: Court Held That Workday Was an “Agent” to Employers Licensing its AI Applicant Screening Tools: Other Bases of Potential Liability Rejected
Case Also Narrowed to Require Workday to Defend Only Plaintiff’s “Disparate Impact” But Not Intentional Discrimination Claims
No Distinction Between AI & Human Actions, Judge Concluded
Judge Rita F. Lin of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco) ruled that a rejected job seeker could proceed with some, but not all, of his Title VII, ADA and ADEA claims against Workday, Inc. Significantly, Judge Lin concluded that “Workday is an ‘employer’ [subject to non-discrimination laws] based on an agency theory.”
Workday must now stand trial for unlawful hiring discrimination that employer use of Workday’s algorithm-based applicant screening, or “AI” (“Artificial Intelligence”) tools allegedly caused. “Drawing an artificial distinction between software decisionmakers and human decisionmakers would potentially gut anti-discrimination laws in the modern era,” Judge Lin wrote. The case is Mobley v. Workday, Inc. (No. 3:23-cv-00770).
The case is just beginning as the court has now decided only (a) that Workday may not be dismissed from Plaintiff Mobley’s lawsuit (b) the legal basis (“agency”) to hold Workday in the case as a defendant “employer,” and (c) which types of Mobley’s claims Workday must defend based on Plaintiff Mobley’s Complaint.
There has thus far been no finding that Workday’s software unlawfully discriminated against Plaintiff Mobley or any Jobseeker. There also has thus far been no opportunity for Plaintiff Mobley to determine what role, if any, Workday’s software played in the rejections for employment Mobley claims he suffered at the hands of Workday’s AI-based applicant screening tools in use at over one hundred companies licensing Workday’s applicant screening tools in Northern California.
What the Heck Is an “Agent” of an Employer?
Judge Lin is an elegant and efficient writer. Since we cannot do any better, here she is in full voice:
“Title VII, the ADA, and the ADEA all define the term “employer” to include “any agent of” an employer. 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e(b), 12111(5)(A); 29 U.S.C. § 630(b). Employers cannot escape liability for discrimination by delegating their traditional functions, like hiring, to a third party. See City of L.A., Dep’t of Water & Power v. Manhart, 435 U.S. 702, 718 n.33 (1978) (“We do not suggest, of course, that an employer can avoid his responsibilities by delegating discriminatory programs to corporate shells. Title VII applies to ‘any agent’ of a covered employer.” (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b))). Accordingly, federal appellate courts outside of the Ninth Circuit have held that an employer’s agent may be independently liable when the employer has delegated to the agent “functions [that] are traditionally exercised by an employer.” Williams v. City of Montgomery, 742 F.2d 586, 589 (11th Cir. 1984) (per curiam). “Where the employer has delegated control of some of the employer’s traditional rights, such as hiring or firing, to a third party, the third party has been found to be an ‘employer’ by virtue of the agency relationship.” Id. (citation omitted).
Editorial Note: Plaintiff Jobseekers and Employees often sue the at-issue employer and/or its “agent” in third party supplier contexts (such as you see in the Workday software supplier context, in recruitment company contexts, and in third party vendor employment testing and background check contexts).
How We Got Here
In February, we reported that the potential lead Plaintiff in the case (Mobley), who seeks class action certification, filed an amended complaint alleging that Workday violated three federal anti-discrimination laws by providing companies with algorithm-based applicant screening, or AI tools, that allegedly discriminated against him and other similarly situated job applicants based on race, age, and/or disability. Mr. Mobley claimed that, as an African American man over the age of forty with anxiety and depression, he applied to over one-hundred jobs with companies that use Workday’s screening tools and did not receive a single job offer.
On March 12, Workday filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint, asserting, among other arguments, that the company is not covered by the statutes at issue – Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and/or the Americans with Disabilities Act – because it merely screens job seekers rather than procuring them.
On April 9, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) argued in an amicus (i.e. “friend of the court”) brief on behalf of the plaintiff that his amended complaint sufficiently pled that Workday is subject to federal anti-discrimination laws as an “employment agency,” “indirect employer,” or an “agent” of employers. (See our story here.)
Workday May be Liable Only as an “Agent” of Employers
Judge Lin dismissed Plaintiff Mobley’s claims under the “employment agency” theory but did not reach the “indirect employer” liability theory. However, she ruled that Mobley could proceed under the theory that Workday operates as an “agent” of an employer.
Liability as an employment agency and liability as the agent of an employer are not coextensive, she explained. “An entity that is liable as an employment agency is not necessarily liable as an agent of an employer or vice versa. Indeed, that is the situation here,” Judge Lin wrote.
The plaintiff did not sufficiently allege that Workday finds employees for employers, and thus, Workday was not liable as an employment agency. Nevertheless, he did plausibly allege that Workday’s customers delegated their traditional function of rejecting candidates or advancing them to the interview stage to Workday via its use of algorithmic decision-making tools. The plain language of the statutes at issue “make it unlawful for ‘any agent’ of an employer to engage in [the practices prohibited by those statutes],” she wrote.
Therefore, even where the term “agent” in the anti-discrimination statutes’ definitions of “employer” is construed to allow third-party liability, the term “employment agency” maintains its distinct meaning, Judge Lin concluded.
“Without agency liability, it appears that no party would be liable for intentional discrimination” in situations where an employer delegates to an agent tasks such as screening applicants and the employer is not aware of possible discriminatory actions made by the agent, she explained.
Whether a software vendor qualifies as an agent depends on the tasks an employer delegates to it, the judge stated. To that point, she wrote:
“Of course, many software vendors do not qualify as agents because they have not been delegated responsibility over traditional employment functions. For example, if an employer used a spreadsheet software program to sort workers by birthdate and then filtered out all applicants over the age of forty from consideration, the software vendor would not have acted as the employer’s agent for purposes of the anti-discrimination statutes, because the spreadsheet is not participating in the determination of which employees to hire. Likewise, if an employer informed applicants via email that they had been rejected, the email provider would not be an agent for anti-discrimination purposes because the email program is not participating in deciding who to refuse to hire.
By contrast, Workday does qualify as an agent because its tools are alleged to perform a traditional hiring function of rejecting candidates at the screening stage and recommending who to advance to subsequent stages, through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.”
AI Actions No Different Than Human Ones
As to the use of AI specifically, the judge wrote:
“Workday’s role in the hiring process is no less significant because it allegedly happens through artificial intelligence rather than a live human being who is sitting in an office going through resumes manually to decide which to reject. Nothing in the language of the federal anti-discrimination statutes or the case law interpreting those statutes distinguishes between delegating functions to an automated agent versus a live human one. To the contrary, courts […] have uniformly focused on the “function” that the principal has delegated to the agent, not the manner in which the agent carries out the delegated function.” [citation omitted]
Intentional Discrimination Claims Dismissed, But Disparate Impact Claims May Proceed
Judge Lin also ruled that the plaintiff failed to allege specific facts in his Complaint showing Workday intentionally discriminated against him. However, Plaintiff Mobley did sufficiently allege his claims under the “disparate impact” theory of unlawful discrimination.