Latest news with #RitaLin
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Judge allows Workday AI bias lawsuit to proceed as collective action
This story was originally published on HR Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily HR Dive newsletter. Workday Inc. will have to face a collective-action lawsuit alleging that the company's artificial intelligence-based applicant recommendation system discriminated against workers age 40 and older (Mobley v. Workday, Inc.), a federal judge ruled Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Judge Rita Lin granted the applicant's request for preliminary certification of a collective action on the age discrimination claim because applicants 'are alike in the central way that matters: they were allegedly required to compete on unequal footing due to Workday's discriminatory AI recommendations,' according to the order. The applicant and four opt-in plaintiffs said they received hundreds of quick rejections without interviews for jobs via Workday, in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Workday has said it could be difficult to identify members of the collective because of the potential number of applicants affected, but the judge said 'those challenges do not appear insurmountable.' 'If the collective is in the 'hundreds of millions' of people, as Workday speculates, that is because Workday has been plausibly accused of discriminating against a broad swath of applicants. Allegedly widespread discrimination is not a basis for denying notice,' Lin ruled. The class will include individuals aged 40 and over who were denied employment recommendations for job opportunities through Workday's job application platform from Sept. 24, 2020, through 'the present,' the court said. A Workday spokesperson said the company continues to believe the case is without merit. 'This is a preliminary ruling at an early stage of this case, and before the facts have been established. We're confident that once those facts are presented to the court, the plaintiff's claims will be dismissed,' the spokesperson said in an emailed statement to HR Dive. To prove disparate impact under the ADEA, plaintiffs need to show a significant disparate impact on a protected class or group; identify the employment practices at issue; and demonstrate a causal relationship between those practices and the disparate impact, the court said. Workday argued that the applicant should be held to a significantly higher burden of proof at the first stage of the 'similarly situated' analysis because discovery has already started. 'In essence, Workday proposes a sliding scale, in which the more discovery has occurred, the more evidence plaintiff should have to provide,' per the order. The judge declined to apply a sliding scale standard, 'which is contrary to the procedure used by virtually all district courts in this circuit.' That type of approach 'would be impossible to apply with consistency, would encourage gamesmanship' and is contrary to precedent, the judge said. Workday also presented several arguments for why the plaintiff's lawsuit should not be granted class-action status. The company said it doesn't offer employment recommendations, so even the plaintiff shouldn't be part of the collective; it said the policy in question is not uniformly applied to all applicants; and Workday said the variation in the proposed class members' qualifications for the jobs, the number of jobs applied to and the rejection rate mean the applicants could not be similarly situated. The court said that Workday's own website and the company's responses during discovery run contrary to its claim that it doesn't recommend applicants. The court noted that the proposed class only includes individuals whose applications were subject to Workday's AI; and the court said the plaintiff 'is not required to prove that each member of the proposed collective is identically situated … his burden is to identify legal or factual similarities that are material to the resolution of the case.' Judge Lin ordered Workday and the plaintiffs to work together to identify the best way to notify potential class members. Correction: In a previous version of this article, the date range of the applicants who could be included in the class was misstated. The class will include individuals aged 40 and over who were denied employment recommendations for job opportunities through Workday's job application platform from Sept. 24, 2020, through 'the present." Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Omnitracs files motion for retrial over Motive copyright case
Omnitracs has filed a motion for a retrial after a federal jury found competitor Motive not guilty of copyright infringement. The fleet tech provider sued Motive in October 2023 alleging it violated several patents related to fleet management systems and technologies. After a nearly two-year legal fight, the jury delivered a unanimous verdict finding Motive not guilty of these charges on April 25. On Thursday, Omnitracs filed a 33-page motion in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California claiming that Motive's conduct during the original trial was 'prejudiced.' 'In lieu of actual non-infringement evidence, Motive relied on a host of improper and irrelevant assertions designed to prejudice the jury against Omnitracs,' the motion obtained by FreightWaves stated. 'When cross examining Omnitracs' technical expert, for instance, Motive lobbed an accusation that Omnitracs (and its witness) were racially and religiously insensitive for not explaining that Motive's co-founder allegedly used an American-sounding email alias to avoid discrimination from truck drivers against Muslim[s].' 'There may not be a more prejudicial statement to make to a jury in the Northern District of California, particularly when one of the jurors was born and raised in and wore a head scarf every day of trial,' the statement continued. 'What's more, Motive's accusations were not supported by the record and were not substantiated by any later witness.' In addition to religious and racial insinuations, Omnitracs alleged that Motive violated court orders regarding the disclosure of their legal investigation. 'Motive followed up these accusations by repeatedly violating this Court's MIL [motion in limine] order prohibiting references to the alleged legal investigation that Motive conducted but withheld from discovery, in addition to numerous other improper arguments,' the motion stated. 'Second, the highly unusual split verdict form — and the language the Court used in explaining the verdict form — severely and unfairly prejudiced Omnitracs by suggesting that the Court believed Omnitracs' liability case was deficient.' Omnitracs contended that these actions prevented a fair trial. 'This behavior, combined with Motive's seizure of the Court's bifurcated verdict form to give the jury a 'everyone-gets-to-go-home' early option, guaranteed that this case would not be decided on the evidence presented,' the motion stated. Presiding U.S. Judge Rita Lin is expected to respond to the proposed order from Omnitracs by Thursday. Motive told FreightWaves in an emailed statement that it stands behind the jury's verdict and statements provided in its initial news release on the matter. The post Omnitracs files motion for retrial over Motive copyright case appeared first on FreightWaves.
Reuters
25-03-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Google defeats part of US shareholder class action over digital ads
March 25 (Reuters) - Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab convinced a federal judge in San Francisco to dismiss part of a lawsuit that accused the tech giant of misleading investors about its digital advertising practices and user privacy protections. In a ruling, opens new tab on Monday, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin said the shareholders in their proposed class action did not adequately support their claim Google made false statements on its website about its practices. Lin said the plaintiffs could move ahead with their claim that a 2020 written statement that Alphabet chief executive officer Sundar Pichai made to Congress was false. The shareholders, who sued Google in 2023, contend Google had rigged online advertising to favor bids from Google-owned platforms or through a network agreement that Meta's (META.O), opens new tab Facebook had with Google. The lawsuit alleged Google committed securities fraud through public statements that characterized the ad market and its auction-based system for selling ads as highly competitive. Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Google in a statement on Tuesday said it "runs a fair first-price auction, no matter where the bid comes from." The company has denied, opens new tab any wrongdoing. Monday's order said the investors had not proven Google acted with the necessary 'state of mind' in some statements. Lin said a company does not commit securities fraud 'every time there is a significant error somewhere on its website that is inconsistent with facts known to the CEO.' 'Under plaintiffs' theory, Pichai's role as CEO makes him the de facto 'maker' of every single statement on Google's website. This is not the law,' Lin wrote. Google is defending against other lawsuits challenging its digital advertising practices. A U.S. judge in Virginia presided over a trial last year in a case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and a group of states, but has not yet ruled. Google has denied the allegations. The case is AMI – Government Employees Provident Fund Management Company v. Alphabet Inc. et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 3:23-CV-01186-RFL. For plaintiffs: Jeremy Lieberman and Emma Gilmore of Pomerantz For defendants: Boris Feldman and Doru Gavril of Freshfields US drops bid to make Google sell AI investments in antitrust case Google asks US appeals court to overturn app store verdict Google must face part of US consumer lawsuit over search dominance Google's US antitrust trial over online ad empire draws to a close
