Khankin v. CSL Behring, L.L.C.

Background

This employment case concerned the eleventh cause of action in Eliyahu Khankin’s second amended complaint, which alleged invasion of his privacy rights under the California Constitution. The claim centered on an Insights Discovery personality test that CSL Behring required Khankin to take. The test categorized individuals by “color energy,” including Cool Blue, Earth Green, Sunshine Yellow, or Fiery Red, representing personality traits and working styles.

In an earlier order, the court dismissed the same privacy claim from Khankin’s first amended complaint but allowed him to amend it. The court had found that the earlier complaint did not plausibly allege that the test revealed private information or intruded on privacy in a way that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.

The Amended Allegations and Arguments

The second amended complaint repeated allegations describing the test and Khankin’s concerns about its effects on neurodiverse employees. It added an allegation that the assigned human-resources representative lacked qualifications to administer or interpret the test and lacked formal training in protected-health-information management.

Khankin also alleged that the test tended to reveal medical conditions, including whether an individual was autistic or otherwise neurodivergent; that CSL Behring revealed employees’ test results to coworkers; and that CSL Behring revealed Khankin’s test results. He alleged that certain officials should have understood that using tests that could reveal conditions such as autism risked violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

CSL Behring argued that Khankin still had not alleged facts explaining how the Insights Discovery test could reveal a disability or medical condition. It also challenged the allegation that neurodivergent individuals tend toward extroverted personality types, arguing that the complaint did not connect the test’s color categories to extroversion or explain how extroversion could reveal a medical condition.

Khankin relied in part on a Seventh Circuit case involving the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a different personality test. He argued that courts had found, after discovery, that similar tests could reveal protected disabilities.

Court’s Analysis

The court distinguished the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory case because that test was alleged to be designed, at least in part, to reveal mental illness and used scales measuring traits associated with psychiatric disorders. By contrast, Khankin’s second amended complaint did not allege that the Insights Discovery test was designed to reveal neurodiversity or other information about a test-taker’s mental or physical health.

The court concluded that the concrete allegations showed only that Khankin took the test and that it assigned colors or personality types. Khankin did not allege facts linking those color groups to a medical condition. The court also found that his allegation that neurodivergent individuals tend toward extroverted personality types lacked factual support. Even assuming the test categorized people as introverts or extroverts, the complaint did not provide facts supporting the further inference that the color categories equated to private medical information.

Disposition

The court held that Khankin failed to state a claim for invasion of privacy despite having several opportunities to amend the claim. Judge Susan Van Keulen granted CSL Behring’s motion to dismiss the eleventh cause of action in the second amended complaint without leave to amend.