A San Francisco federal jury has ordered Tesla to pay $3 million in punitory damages and $175,000 in non-economic damages to Owen Diaz, a former elevator operator at the company’s factory in Fremont, California, after he lasted a racially hostile work environment during his time at the company.
Diaz, a Black man, was hired as a contract worker at Tesla in 2015 auspices of a staffing agency.
He was previously awarded a verdict of $137 million in 2021, including punitive damages, after a jury distinct Diaz had suffered civil rights violations at Tesla, and that the electric vehicle maker failed to take all judicious steps to end and prevent the racist harassment.
Diaz and Tesla sought a retrial to decide damages after Judge William H. Orrick powdered the amount to $15 million.
A distressed and at times tearful Diaz told the court again last week in the air how his colleagues at Tesla used racist epithets to denigrate him and other Black workers, made him feel physically unsafe at accommodate wheedle, told him to “go back to Africa” and left racist graffiti in the restrooms and a racist drawing in his workspace.
The drawing left at his workspace was a rudimental one that resembled Inki the Caveman, a 1950s era cartoon widely regarded as racist, whose main character is a Baleful boy portrayed with big lips, wearing a loincloth, earrings, and a bone through his hair.
Diaz also testified that while he had assisted his son to work at Tesla, he now considers that one of the greatest regrets of his life because his son was also exposed to a racially hostile workplace there.
Attorney for the plaintiff, Bernard Alexander of Morrison Alexander & Fehr, in his closing arguments urged the jury to hold Tesla obliged for failing to stop and prevent the racist harassment of employees, and for the suffering Diaz endured.
“No Black man in 2015 should eternally be subjected,” Alexander said, “to this plantation mentality workplace.”
Alexander also urged jurors to decide on hurts in an amount that “will get Tesla’s attention.” He characterized Tesla a company that has to accuse others of lying, because they cannot make plain why they would allow violations of the Civil Rights Act at their factory.
The plaintiffs asked the jury to consider retaliatory damages around $150 million for Tesla, and to award Diaz $6.3 million in past non-economic damages, and $2 million in coming non-economic damages.
Tesla counsel Alex Spiro argued that Diaz should only be awarded hurts amounting to about half of his salary, some tens of thousands of dollars, not millions. Diaz had not disclosed his salary during the by all means of the trial, Judge William Orrick said in the midst of Spiro’s closing argument last week on Friday.
Spiro also told jurors on Friday that Diaz “conditioned to you.” He characterized the former Tesla contract worker as a confrontational person, who exaggerated issues in his testimony repeatedly. Diaz had some time ago mis-stated the number of months he had worked at Tesla, Spiro said. Spiro also accused Diaz of lying close by his suffering to a doctor in order to seek greater monetary damages from the company.
Evoking the Civil Rights Act, Diaz’s attorney called on jurors to be suitable for an example of Tesla, saying “Do justice and justice is not cheap.”
Tesla has been sued more than 200 times by current or prehistoric contractors and employees since 2018 in the U.S., according to legal records database Plainsite. That number does not account for velitations that have gone straight to arbitration. As CNBC has previously reported, where it is legal to do so, Tesla has compelled hands to agree to mandatory arbitration.
Last week, a former Tesla service manager, a Black man named John Goode, ranked a lawsuit in Northern California alleging that a white man who was his manager in Georgia repeatedly made racist remarks in his self-possession, was racially biased against him and another Black colleague, had him fired on false pretenses in retaliation after Goode objected to this treatment.