A former elevator operator at Tesla’s Fremont, California factory has denied a judge’s settlement of $15 million following a racial discrimination and harassment case in 2017, according to Reuters.
Owen Diaz, a former contract worker at Tesla who is Black, was awarded a $137 million settlement by a jury last year, following the judge’s ruling that Tesla did, in fact, subject him to a racially hostile work environment.
Tesla later asked the judge to lower what it called a “staggering” amount in the racial bias case, to which the judge responded by slashing the amount to just $15 million.
Diaz’s lawyers, who have been on the case since the original suit in 2017, denied the award and said the amount was not enough to deter future discrimination from Tesla, according to a filing with a federal court in San Francisco.
The denial of the award could pave the way for an entirely new trial.
Tesla Faces Lawsuit from Former Nevada Factory Employees Over Job Cuts https://t.co/0vg0xQHrsD
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) June 20, 2022
The incident occurred while Diaz worked at the Fremont factory from June 2015 to March 2016.
Tesla also faces a racial discrimination suit from California’s Department of Fair Housing and Employement (DFEH), which the automaker called “misguided” earlier this year.
Elon Musk and Tesla also gained two new lawsuits this week, one alleging a “toxic workplace culture” and the other claiming Musk used Dogecoin as part of a pyramid scheme.
