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Update:
- A jury ordered Tesla to pay a Black former worker about $3.2 million in damages because of the racist discrimination he endured working at the company in 2015.
- Plaintiff Owen Diaz previously received a $137 million award in 2021, including punitive damages, after a jury determined he suffered civil rights violations at Tesla and that the electric vehicle maker failed to end and prevent the racist harassment.
- Diaz and Tesla sought a retrial to decide damages after Judge William H. Orrick reduced the amount to $15 million.
- Invoking the Civil Right Act, Diaz’s attorney asked the jurors to make Tesla an example, saying, “ Do justice and justice is not cheap.”
Tesla Workplace Discrimination Lawsuit Overview:
- Who: Tesla was ordered to pay a former subcontractor, Owen Diaz, $136.9 million.
- Why: Diaz claimed he was subjected to a racially hostile workplace while performing elevator operator work at Tesla’s Northern California factory.
- Where: The lawsuit was heard in California federal court.
(Oct. 8, 2021)
A federal jury in California awarded a former Tesla subcontractor $136.9 million after determining they had to endure a racially hostile workplace while performing jobs at the company’s Northern California factory.
Plaintiff Owen Diaz, an elevator operator, was awarded $6.9 million in compensatory damages for past and future emotional distress, along with $130 million in punitive damages.
The jury took less than four hours to reach the verdict following a weeklong trial over allegations Diaz faced workplace discrimination, including racial harassment from supervisors and coworkers while performing subcontracting work at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, Law360 reports.
Subcontractor details workplace discrimination experienced at Tesla
Diaz claimed he suffered emotional distress after he and his son were called the N-word by coworkers and supervisors and argued his pleas to Tesla management to end the harassment went unheard.
The subcontractor, along with his son, Demetric, and another former worker Lamar Patterson, had originally filed suit against Tesla in 2017, claiming their time working at the factory was a “scene straight from the Jim Crow era.”
Indeed, in 2017, Tesla was hit with a class action lawsuit that called the electric car maker’s California factory a “hotbed for racist behavior.”
Diaz claimed in his lawsuit that, among other things, he was told to “Go back to Africa,” and at one point cornered by a supervisor in an elevator while working at the factory.
The plaintiff alleged he ultimately quit doing work for Tesla because of the abusive and racially hostile atmosphere, according to the class action lawsuit.
The jury heard from former Tesla subcontractors who testified that they heard the N-word used on a daily basis at the factory, while Diaz took the stand to personally testify about the racial harassment he says he endured, Law360 reports.
A psychologist also took the stand to testify that Diaz likely suffered psychological injury from dealing with the workplace discrimination at Tesla, while a retired California administrative law judge said Tesla didn’t appear to have been enforcing its anti-harassment policies.
Tesla, along with staffing liaison nextSource Inc. and CitiStaff Solutions, had appealed a federal judge’s decision in 2019 to award them summary judgement on most of the claims, but the judge ruled they were to stand trial.
Diaz ended up settling with CitiStaff Solutions last year, while nextSource was ultimately removed as a defendant, Law360 reports.
Tesla denied the workplace discrimination claims from the beginning, while Law360 reports the company never made a settlement offer or any effort to resolve the case before having it go in front of a jury.
In August, Tesla agreed to a $1.5 million settlement with 1,700 owners of Model S and X vehicles who claimed the company hurried out a software update which reduced their vehicles range by 20 to 40 miles.
Have you faced workplace discrimination? Let us know in the comments!
The plaintiff is represented by Lawrence A. Organ and Navruz Avloni of the California Civil Rights Law Group.
The Tesla workplace discrimination lawsuit is Diaz, et al. v Tesla et al., Case No. RG17878854, in the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Alameda.
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5 thoughts onTesla to pay $3.2M to former worker who endured racially hostile work environment
Yes when I worked at Tesla I was treated with so much racial bias that I broke down and cried. I was a car cleaner on the inspection line and work way harder and I was watched like a hawk as were others of my ethnicity, while other people walked around, stopped to talk, took numerous breaks, etc the list goes on. Management was playing favoritism. Very sad!
I was falsely accused of being racist and of sexual harassment when I don’t work with other people my job is to just move cars in the lot. I was suspended without pay and I was never told of anything going on in order to improve or even given a warning or moved departments in order to keep my job while they performed an investigation. Tesla is an unsafe environment for all its employees and the management is not there to protect their people. Working at a place where you are always afraid to loose your job for any reason is such a toxic environment.
Please add me I was racially and disabled while trying to work over time,
Add me please
Add me please