Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Product safety head fired after warning of humanoid robots’ ability to crush human skulls files suit, (Dec 2, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

He alleges that his warnings and concerns conflicted with the employer’s speed-at-all-costs approach to the robots’ development.

In a recent lawsuit, a veteran robot safety engineer and Head of Product Safety at Figure AI, a robotics company developing general-purpose humanoid robots for use in the home and workplace, alleges he was wrongfully terminated in violation of state law after repeatedly warning executives and others about serious safety risks posed by the humanoid robots it is developing.

According to the lawsuit, the engineer was hired in October 2024 to develop and enforce global safety standards for Figure AI. After his hire, he documented incidents where robots being created by the employer generated forces capable of fracturing a human skull and even damaged a steel refrigerator during a malfunction by punching it and leaving a quarter-inch gash.

His concerns about inadequate safety measures, canceled emergency-stop certifications, and misleading investor safety representations were dismissed, he alleges. As Head of Product Safety, he and his department had the authority to halt the release of an unsafe product, but he alleges that the employer viewed that authority as incompatible with its speed-at-all-costs approach.

Impact tests. Specifically, he alleges that impact tests on the robots performed on July 28, 2025, with data processed on July 30, showed super-human speed and the impact meter measured forces used by the robots that were 20 times higher than the threshold of pain. Threshold of pain limits come from ISO 15066, he explains in his lawsuit, which is a technical specification that provides safety requirements for collaborative industrial robot systems where humans and robots share a workspace. He estimated the force generated by the tested robot (the second generation) to be approximately more than twice the force necessary to fracture an adult human skull.

Near misses. The day between the impact test and the data processing, the engineer received a 5.2 percent raise and was complimented for his “continued growth and impact at Figure,” he alleges. The next day, after the data was processed, he warned the employer that the robot was capable of inflicting severe permanent injury on humans. He continued to escalate concerns, as well as learn of new ones from employees, including “near misses” such as when a robot malfunctioned and punched a refrigerator, only narrowly missing a worker and leaving a quarter-inch deep gash in the stainless-steel door.

On September 2, 2025, the engineer alleges, he was fired and given the allegedly pretextual reason that the employer desired a “business direction change.”

His lawsuit includes claims for retaliation under two sections of the California Labor Code, as well as wrongful termination in violation of public policy.

The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California; the case is No. 5:25-cv-10094.

News: LitigationNewsTrends AINews Safety Discharge Whistleblowers Retaliation StateLawClaims