A federal court on Monday awarded a former factory worker at Tesla’s Fremont plant almost $137 million after horrifying claims that he was allegedly subjected to a plethora of racist harassment from colleagues in less than a year on the job.
Following a one week trial, an eight member San Francisco jury found that Tesla violated 53-year-old Owen Diaz’s right to be free of a racially hostile work environment. He was awarded $6.9 million for emotional distress and another $130 million in punitive damages.
Diaz, who is Black, worked as an elevator operator for the Palo-Alto based car manufacturer for nearly nine months, starting in June, 2015. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, he claimed that during that stint he was called the n-word at least 30 times by supervisors and many more times by coworkers. He was also shown racist cartoons and graffiti, told to "go back to Africa" and experienced multiple other forms of abuse.
Other Black employees who testified at the trial gave similar accounts.
Tesla unsuccessfully argued that since he worked for a staffing company contracted by them, he wasn’t technically their employee.
The paper reported that the electric car manufacturer also denied failing to protect him against the racist attacks and didn’t hesitate to address any racial abuse at the factory when they were made aware. The company also denied having any knowledge of the alleged racist acts.
Tesla could ask the district judge to overturn or reduce the verdict and could also appeal the ruling to higher courts.
Diaz’s son, Demetric, who worked at the plant at the same time, also allegedly experienced racism from a supervisor which "mentally traumatized" him. He sued Tesla separately as well, a case which has been resolved but the details have not been made public.
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