OAKLAND, California: A group of 26 Meta employees has sued the company, alleging it used artificial intelligence tools to help select workers for layoffs in a way that disproportionately affected employees on medical, parental or family leave.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Oakland, California, claims Meta relied on internal AI systems, keystroke and activity-monitoring data, AI token-usage dashboards and algorithmically assisted performance rankings, among other methods, when choosing employees for layoffs announced in May.

The plaintiffs are among the roughly 8,000 employees, or about 10 percent of Meta's workforce, the company said it would lay off. Although they have been notified of their layoffs, all 26 remain employed, with their separations scheduled to begin on July 22.

According to the complaint, many of the performance scores used in the process "by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability."

The lawsuit alleges Meta failed to account for protected leave when evaluating employees and "did not pause the system for the individualized, leave- and accommodation-neutral review that the law requires."

It says the process disproportionately selected employees on protected leave for layoffs.

Many of the plaintiffs had taken pregnancy or parental leave, while others had taken medical leave. One employee allegedly disclosed a "serious health condition and disability" that had been approved by Meta's leave provider but was discouraged by a manager from taking leave because it could result in being selected for layoffs, according to the complaint.

Meta denied the allegations. "The claims lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI," the company said in a statement.

About half of the plaintiffs had taken leave related to caregiving or pregnancy. The lawsuit includes eight women who had taken maternity or pregnancy-related leave, four men who had taken parental leave and one woman who had taken leave to care for a family member before later taking bereavement leave.

The complaint alleges violations of several federal and state laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to preserve the status quo while the dispute proceeds to arbitration, arguing that once the layoffs take effect, workers could lose employer-sponsored health coverage, protected leave rights, unvested equity and, in some cases, face immigration consequences.