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A federal jury in San Francisco on Monday ordered Tesla Inc to pay about $3.2 million to a Black former employee after the electric-vehicle maker was found to have failed to prevent severe racial harassment at its flagship assembly plant in California.
The verdict came after a week-long trial in the 2017 lawsuit by plaintiff Owen Diaz, who in 2021 was awarded $137 million by a different jury. He opted for a new trial on damages after a judge agreed with that jury that Tesla was liable but significantly reduced the award to $15 million.
Diaz accused Tesla of failing to act when he repeatedly complained to managers that employees at the Fremont, California, fac tory frequently used racist slurs and scrawled swastikas, racist caricatures and epithets on walls and work areas.
The jury on Monday awarded Diaz, who worked as an elevator operator, $175,000 in damages for emotional distress and $3 million in punitive damages designed to punish unlawful conduct and deter it in the future.
Bernard Alexander, a lawyer for Diaz, urged jurors during closing statements on Friday to award him nearly $160 million in damages, and send a message to Tesla and other large companies that they will be held accountable for failing to address discrimination.
“Mr. Diaz’s outlook on the world has been permanently changed,” Alexander said. “That is what happens when you take away a person’s safety.”
Tesla’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, countered that Diaz was a confrontational worker who had exaggerated his claims of emotional distress, and said his lawyers failed to show any serious, long-lasting damage caused by Tesla.
“They’re just throwing numbers up on the screen like this is some kind of game show,” Spiro said.