Meta Faces Landmark Lawsuit Alleging AI Tools Targeted Disabled Workers for Layoffs

Twenty-six former Meta employees have filed what appears to be the first lawsuit against a major U.S. company challenging the use of artificial intelligence in a corporate layoff process, according to a new report.Filed Monday in federal court in Oakland, California, the suit claims Meta’s AI-powered productivity tools disproportionately targeted workers with disabilities, medical conditions, or approved family leave during the company’s May 2026 mass layoffs, Reuters reports.“Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work,” the plaintiffs write in their 71-page complaint. “Instead, Meta used a constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems — including a system referred to internally as ‘Metamate,’ employee-trained ‘second-brain’ agents, keystroke- and activity-monitoring data, AI-token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance ranking and calibration — to score, rank and select employees for inclusion on the list.”The plaintiffs — who filed anonymously and hail from six states, including California, New York, and Florida, as well as Washington, D.C. — were notified in May that their positions would be eliminated starting July 22. They are seeking a court order blocking those terminations while they pursue individual claims in arbitration.Meta does have a protected medical leave policy, but because some workers on such leave had less activity for the systems to measure, the plaintiffs argue the AI tools effectively penalized them with lower scores — pushing them onto the termination list.The lawsuit accuses Meta of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and related state laws. The plaintiffs also allege Meta failed to test its AI systems for bias, in violation of recently adopted laws in California and New York City.Meta, which owns such sites as Facebook and Instagram, disputed the allegations. “These claims lack merit and are not based on facts,” a company spokesman told Reuters. “Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.”The May cuts eliminated roughly 8,000 positions — about 10 percent of Meta’s global workforce — as part of a broader company reorganization tied to its accelerating investment in AI. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has since said he does not expect additional company-wide layoffs this year.The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge William Orrick, who was nominated by President Obama.

Meta Faces Landmark Lawsuit Alleging AI Tools Targeted Disabled Workers for Layoffs

Meta Faces Landmark Lawsuit Alleging AI Tools Targeted Disabled Workers for Layoffs

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