Owen Diaz vs. Tesla was a discrimination lawsuit filed against electric car manufacturer

Tesla, Inc. Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Tesla designs and manufactures electric vehicles (electric cars and trucks), battery energy storage from home to grid- ...

The plaintiff, Owen Diaz, was an elevator operator at the

Tesla Fremont Factory The Tesla Fremont Factory is an automobile manufacturing plant in Fremont, California, operated by Tesla, Inc. The facility opened as General Motors' Fremont Assembly in 1962, and was later operated by NUMMI, a GM–Toyota joint venture. Tesl ...

in California between 2015 and 2016. The lawsuit stated that Diaz faced constant harassment including

racial slurs The following is a list of ethnic slurs or ethnophaulisms or ethnic epithets that are, or have been, used as insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnicity or racial group or to refer to them in a derogatory, pejorative, or oth ...

. According to the state's

Department of Fair Employment and Housing The California Civil Rights Department (CRD) (formerly known as the ''Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH)'') is an agency of California state government charged with the protection of residents from employment, housing and public ac ...

, the Fremont factory is racially segregated and Black workers testify that they are subjected to racist slurs, racial drawings, and are given the most menial and physically demanding work. Working conditions at the plant are so unacceptable, the organization states, that many Black employees have been forced to quit. J. Bernard Alexander III, one of Diaz's lawyers, told jurors that the use of the “

n-word In the English language, the word ''nigger'' is an ethnic slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the late 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been progressively replaced by the euphemism , notably in cases ...

” was pervasive and virtually everywhere at Fremont factory. In 2021, a jury found for the plaintiff, and ordered Tesla to pay in damages, of which $6.9 million were for emotional distress and $130 million were

punitive damages Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. ...

. The verdict is one of the most significant in this class of lawsuit. In April 2022, federal judge William Orrick upheld the jury finding of Tesla's liability but reduced the total award down to $15 million. Tesla had sought to limit the damage to $600,000 in total.

References

{{reflist Lawsuits