Tesla has been asked to pay nearly $3.2 million on Monday (April 3) in a racial discrimination case, which was bought to court by a former black employee.
Diaz reportedly worked at the assembly plant in Fremont, California and the company for violating a California law that prohibits employers from failing to address hostile work environments.
The court filing revealed that Diaz said that Tesla turned a blind eye to racism at the Silicon Valley plant. A federal jury found that Diaz was subjected to a racially hostile work environment when he worked at the plant as a lift operator from 2015 to 2016 at its Fremont factory.
He alleged that he was subjected to racial slurs, including the N-word, on the Fremont factory floor. He also mentioned that he saw racist graffiti in bathrooms and a racially insensitive cartoon.
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The verdict by the San Francisco jury in the retrial was a victory of sorts for Tesla, which had been ordered to pay Owen Diaz $137 million by a jury when the original trial ended in October 2021.
A judge later reduced the amount in keeping with legal standards, but Diaz rejected the judge’s proffered damages amount in favour of a new trial.
The suit, originally filed by Diaz, his son, and a third former employee said that instead of a modern workplace, the plaintiffs “encountered a scene straight from the Jim Crow era”.
Diaz had also claimed that Tesla took no action over the regular racist abuse despite complaints to supervisors.
(With inputs from agencies)
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