Meta faces a lawsuit alleging AI-driven layoffs disproportionately targeted employees with medical conditions, disabilities and protected medical leave.Meta Platforms is facing a lawsuit from 26 employees who claim the company used AI-powered software to disproportionately target workers with disabilities or those who took medical leave during its latest round of job cuts.
The lawsuit, filed late Monday in a federal court in Oakland, California, alleges that Meta relied on factors including productivity and AI token usage when selecting employees for layoffs earlier this year. The workers argue the system disadvantaged people who missed work because of medical conditions or to care for family members.
The plaintiffs, who were informed in May that their jobs would be terminated from July 22, are asking the court to temporarily block Meta from carrying out the layoffs while they pursue their claims through private arbitration. They argue that although their employment agreements require workplace disputes to be resolved individually through arbitration, the agreements do not prevent them from seeking temporary court relief.
A Meta spokesperson rejected the allegations.
“Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI,” the spokesperson said.
The case is believed to be the first lawsuit against a major US company challenging the alleged use of AI in deciding mass layoffs.
Meta cut about 10% of its global workforce, nearly 8,000 employees, in May as part of a wider restructuring tied to increased investment in artificial intelligence. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has since said the company does not expect any further company-wide layoffs this year.
The 26 anonymous plaintiffs accuse Meta of violating federal and state laws that prohibit discrimination or retaliation against workers with disabilities, those who take medical leave and pregnant employees. They also allege the company failed to test its AI systems for bias, in breach of recently introduced laws in California and New York City.
The employees, who are from six states and the District of Columbia, claim Meta used several AI-assisted internal tools to score and rank staff for termination.
According to the complaint, the tools included “Metamate”, a large language model assistant, an employee-trained “second brain” that tracked workers’ communications and documents, and a productivity score generated by analysing keystrokes, screen content, emails and browser history.