A Black employee is suing the Workday company for having police sent to his home for a wellness check.
Anthony Hill, a senior legal counsel at Workday currently on leave, has filed a lawsuit against his employer for race and disability discrimination, Business Insider reports. The suit, filed in the Northern District of California’s court in December 2023, follows a police “wellness check” that occurred while he received treatment at a hospital and had requested medical leave.
Hill said he was on medical leave from Oct. 12, 2022, to Nov. 22, 2022, the lawsuit states. In the lead-up to his medical leave, Hill claims he began drinking more due to mounting tension and sought hospital care for “stress, exhaustion, and trauma resulting from the disparate, discriminatory, retaliatory, harassing, and hostile treatment” he experienced from other Workday employees, according to the lawsuit.
On the day of his hospital visit, Hill emailed his manager to notify her of a medical emergency and his need to go to the hospital. He also submitted a completed leave request form and mentioned that he would soon file the necessary Family and Medical Leave Act paperwork.
His manager responded the next day with FMLA information and told Hill, “Please don’t worry about work and focus on feeling better.” However, by Oct. 20, police were sent to his house for a wellness check.
“There’s nothing they would’ve thought cops with guns could solve on Oct. 20 that doctors with stethoscopes could not have solved,” Hill declared.
According to the police report, a Workday safety and security manager initiated a wellness check on Hill after the company could not reach him or his wife, who was listed as his emergency contact. The police spoke with Hill’s wife, who confirmed that he was receiving medical treatment. Hill says he did not receive any calls or emails from his employer following his manager’s last email on Oct. 13, prior to the wellness check.
He recalls speaking with the human resources department to better understand why the wellness check was requested, but staff refused to provide him with information or documentation about it.
“They won’t tell me anything. Did they think it was an emergency? Did they think I was in danger?” Hill said. “Did they think I was going to hurt someone? Why did they send police to my house and endanger my wife and kids?”
Upon returning to work, Hill claims to have experienced “awful treatment,” including increased pushback and being excluded from meeting invitations. He also mentioned that he was on a modified schedule, working part-time after initially being hired for a full-time position.
In March 2023, Hill was placed on paid administrative suspension for five weeks. By May 2023, he had gone on approved disability and medical leave but stated that his request for long-term disability leave had been denied.
In April 2023, Hill filed a charge against Workday with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He
later filed a lawsuit against the company in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia in August 2023, which was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice. He refiled his suit in December 2023, and it is still ongoing.“Without a doubt, I was retaliated against over and over again,” Hill said.
In addition to Hill’s discrimination lawsuit, Workday is also facing a class-action lawsuit alleging that its AI-powered software discriminates against job applicants by screening them out for biased reasons.