Most job seekers assume instant rejections are just part of the process. You apply online, you get a rejection email at a strange hour, and you move on. There’s usually no explanation and no indication anyone actually looked at your resume. This is how modern hiring works.
The Workday lawsuit exists because one applicant decided to fight back, and a federal court decided the case was serious enough to hear.
The case is called Mobley v. Workday, Inc. The plaintiff, Derek Mobley, is an African American man over the age of 40 with a disability. Over several years, he applied to more than 100 jobs at companies that used Workday’s hiring platform, and was rejected every time. According to the complaint, many of those rejections came unusually fast, sometimes within minutes and sometimes at hours – suggesting no recruiter was actively reviewing applications.
Rather than sue the employers, Mobley sued Workday (the company that provides the hiring software).
At first, the case went nowhere. A court dismissed it on the grounds that Workday was not an employer and therefore could not be sued under employment discrimination laws. That argument held until July 2024, when a federal judge reversed course and ruled that Workday could potentially be treated as an agent of the employers that use its software. That shift turned the lawsuit into something much larger. In May 2025, the court certified the case as a nationwide collective action covering applicants over the age of 40 who were rejected through Workday systems after September 2020. This allowed other job seekers to join the case if they believed they were affected. It did not establish that discrimination occurred, only that the claims were similar enough to be examined together.
What’s the Status of the Suit?
The lawsuit itself makes several allegations that remain unproven. Mobley claims that Workday’s AI-driven screening tools may filter out candidates based on age, race, or disability. He argues that if such tools are trained on historical hiring data, they could reflect patterns from past human decisions. The complaint also points to the speed and timing of certain rejections as circumstantial evidence that automated systems were making disqualification decisions without human review. Workday disputes these claims.
As of early 2026, the case is still in the discovery phase. This is the stage where both sides exchange internal documents and data. There has been no verdict. No discrimination has been legally established. No damages have been awarded.
Consequences of the Case
Courts have made it clear they are willing to examine whether companies that build hiring software can be held legally responsible for how that software functions in real hiring decisions. That question alone has drawn attention from employers, vendors, and regulators.
Outside the lawsuit, states such as California and New York have begun passing laws that require bias audits for certain automated hiring tools. The Workday case does not decide those policies, but it exists in the same broader conversation about how much autonomy algorithms should have and how much transparency job seekers are entitled to.
For now, the lawsuit confirms that claims about AI-driven hiring has some merit.
Think you were unfairly filtered out by an algorithm? If you’re over 40 and were rejected after applying through a Workday portal, you may be eligible to join this nationwide collective action.
