Judge grants class certification in Tesla racial discrimination class action

Update:

• A California judge ruled a class of nearly 6,000 Black former Tesla workers at the company’s Fremont plant can examine issues in their racial discrimination claims.
• “The classwide findings will establish common facts that the members of the class or Tesla may then use in individual cases, avoiding the time, expense, inefficiency and potentially inconsistent results of repeated litigation of those common fact issues,” Superior Court Judge Noel Wise writes.
• The class certification and litigation will determine if injunctive relief is necessary against Tesla at the Fremont plant, while individual cases will later determine if the automaker should pay damages.

(Nov. 16, 2017)

Tesla Inc. has been hit with a class action lawsuit that calls the electric car maker’s California factory a “hotbed for racist behavior.”

Plaintiff Marcus Vaughn, an African-American who was employed as a general assembly associate at Tesla from April through October 2017, alleges that the Tesla defendants have created a work environment that is intimidating, hostile and offensive toward African-American employees.

“Although Tesla stands out as a groundbreaking company at the forefront of the electric car revolution, its standard operating procedure at the Tesla Factory is pre-Civil Rights Ara race discrimination,” the Tesla class action lawsuit alleges.

According to the Tesla class action lawsuit, the electric car company failed to take steps to prevent racially-based harassment and failed to take corrective action when racially-based harassment had occurred.

Vaughn also says that employees routinely used racial epithets at the factory. He says the behavior continued despite numerous reports of the race-based harassment to supervisors, the human resources department and to CEO Elon Musk.

“In fact, Defendants have a policy of creating a hostile work environment at the Tesla Factory,” Vaughn alleges in the Tesla class action lawsuit. “Non-African American employees, including supervisors, made and continue to make offensive racist comments and engage in offensive racist behavior towards Plaintiff and Class Members in the Tesla Factory on a daily basis.”

Shortly after he began working at the Tesla factory, Vaughn says he became a target for harassment based on his race. According to the Tesla class action lawsuit, he also observed other African-American employees being subjected to race-based harassment.

Vaughn submitted a written complaint to human resources business partner Rose Sanson and CEO Elon Musk regarding the hostile work environment and racism that was allegedly directed at African-American employees at the Tesla factory.

However, the Tesla defendants reportedly failed to conduct an investigation into Vaughn’s allegations.

“Instead, Plaintiff Vaughn was terminated on October 31, 2017 for ‘not having a positive attitude,’” the Tesla class action lawsuit alleges.

Vaughn filed the Tesla class action lawsuit on behalf of himself and a proposed Class of current and former African-American employees who worked on the production floor of the Tesla factory since Nov. 9, 2016.

“During the Class Period, Plaintiff and the putative Class Members suffered severe and pervasive harassment at the Tesla Factory because they are African-American,” the Tesla class action lawsuit alleges.

Vaughn states that he has exhausted his administrative remedies, including timely filing a charge of discrimination earlier this month with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The DFEH reportedly issued a Right-to-Sue Notice on Nov. 9.

The Tesla class action lawsuit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, back pay, front pay, compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and costs.

Vaughn is represented by Lawrence Organ and Navruz Avloni of California Civil Rights Law Group and Bryan Schwartz and Logan Starr of Bryan Schwartz Law.

The Tesla race discrimination class action lawsuit is Marcus Vaughn v. Tesla Inc., et al., Case No RG17882082, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Alameda.

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