Vehicles are parked outside the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, on May 12, 2020. A federal judge has stripped a former Black contract worker of his award for alleged racial discrimination. race at the factory.
Ben Margot / AP
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Ben Margot / AP
Vehicles are parked outside the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, on May 12, 2020. A federal judge has stripped a former Black contract worker of his award for alleged racial discrimination. race at the factory.
Ben Margot / AP
A federal judge reduced the payment of a former Black contract worker to $15 million — from $137 million — in a racial discrimination lawsuit against Tesla.
Owen Diaz, who worked as a contract elevator operator at the automaker’s factory in Fremont, California, sued the company in 2017, alleging that he was racially abused.
After a federal jury in San Francisco ordered Tesla to pay Diaz $137 million last year, Tesla challenges judgment.
On Wednesday, judge William Orrick cut the award to $15 million.
“That’s the maximum,” Larry Organ, Diaz’s attorney and founder of the California Civil Rights Law Group, told NPR. “Not because [the judge] see anything wrong with what Mr. Diaz said or Mr. Diaz was not injured or anything like that. It is based on a comparison only. “
Diaz testified that employees called him the N-word among other racial slurs. A Tesla supervisor called him by the N word “more than 30 times,” Diaz testified, according to court documents obtained by NPR.
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing is also sue Tesla about alleged racism and harassment of Black employees in the same factory.
“The evidence is disturbing. The jury heard that the Tesla factory was saturated with racism,” Orrick wrote in his order.
Orrick writes that hearing the word once can be “appalling,” and that Diaz and other employees heard it “many times and often” in the factory.
The judge wrote: “Despite Diaz’s complaints, his owners did nothing to stop it. Orrick added:
“All of this leads me to conclude that this is not, as Tesla tries to frame it, a case of ‘garden diversity’ emotional distress ‘which is fortunately mild and only temporary. short,” the judge wrote.
Tesla said the facts in the case did not justify the ruling
In one Message to staff Last year, as was shared on the company blog, a Tesla executive outlined what the jury heard and said that the company believes “these facts do not justify the judgment.” decide.”
“…We realized that in 2015 and 2016 we weren’t perfect,” wrote then-VP of Human Resources Valerie Capers Workman. “We’re not perfect yet.”
Workman added, “we will continue to remind everyone who walks into a Tesla workplace that any discriminatory slurs – regardless of the intent or who is using them – will not be tolerated.” rank.”
Organ, who represents Diaz, said it was a pleasure to see the judge realize the seriousness of the racism his customers experienced at Tesla.
Organ told NPR: “Mr Diaz has shown great courage in standing up to a corporation like Tesla, a corporation that is being torn apart. “Mr Diaz’s record should not be forgotten based solely on reducing judgment on legal principles.”
Starting Wednesday, Diaz has 30 days to send notice of whether he accepts or rejects the revised sentences, according to court documents.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
