Tesla California HQ
A federal jury in San Francisco has ordered Tesla Inc to pay $3.2 million to a former Black employee, Owen Diaz, for its failure to prevent severe racial harassment at its flagship assembly plant in California, reports Reuters.
Diaz accused Tesla of failing to act when he repeatedly complained to managers about employees frequently using racist slurs and scrawling racist symbols on walls and work areas.
The former elevator operator at the company’s Fremont factory was awarded $175,000 in damages for emotional distress, and $3 million in punitive damages designed to punish unlawful conduct and deter it in the future, by a federal jury on Monday. Tesla has said it does not tolerate workplace discrimination and takes worker complaints seriously.
Tesla’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, argued that Diaz was a confrontational worker who had exaggerated his claims of emotional distress, and his lawyers failed to show any serious, long-lasting damage caused by Tesla.
The EV maker is facing similar claims of tolerating race discrimination at the Fremont plant and other workplaces in a pending class action by Black workers, a separate case from a California civil rights agency, and multiple cases involving individual workers. The company has denied wrongdoing in those cases.
The verdict came after a week-long trial in the 2017 lawsuit by Diaz, who in 2021 was awarded $137 million by a different jury. That award was reduced down to $15 million after being deemed excessive, but then Diaz opted for a new trial based on damages.
Lawyers for Diaz pushed for almost $160 million in damages during their closing statements, to hold companies such as Tesla accountable for the alleged discrimination.
“Mr. Diaz’s outlook on the world has been permanently changed,” said Bernard Alexander, one of Diaz’s lawyers. “That is what happens when you take away a person’s safety.”
“They’re just throwing numbers up on the screen like this is some kind of game show,” replied Tesla’s lawyer Alex Spiro.
Diaz accused Tesla of failing to act when he repeatedly complained to managers that employees at the Fremont, California, factory frequently used racist slurs and scrawled swastikas, racist caricatures, and epithets on walls and work areas.
The former worker had sued Tesla for violating a California law that prohibits employers from failing to address hostile work environments based on race or other protected traits.
Elon Musk said in response to the trial to @WholeMarsBlog, “If we had been allowed to introduce new evidence, the verdict would’ve been zero [in my opinion]. Jury did the best they could with the information they had. I respect the decision.”
If we had been allowed to introduce new evidence, the verdict would’ve been zero imo.
Jury did the best they could with the information they had. I respect the decision.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2023
