Ex-Tesla worker awarded $137M
Tesla Inc. must pay nearly $137 million to a Black former worker who said he suffered racial abuse at the electric carmaker’s San Francisco Bay Area factory.
The jury in San Francisco agreed that Owen Diaz was subjected to racial harassment and a hostile work environment.
Diaz alleged in a lawsuit that he was harassed and faced “daily racist epithets,” including the “N-word,” while working at Tesla’s Fremont plant in 2015 and 2016 before quitting.
He contended that supervisors failed to stop the abuse.
Diaz was awarded $6.9 million in damages for emotional distress and $130 million in punitive damages, his attorney, Lawrence A. Organ, told the Washington Post.