Tesla seeks full retrial in factory worker’s race bias lawsuit

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October 17, 2022

By Daniel Wiessner, Reuters

The Tesla factory is seen in Fremont, California, U.S. June 22, 2018. (REUTERS/Stephen Lam)

Tesla Inc has asked a California federal judge who set aside a $137 million jury verdict in a factory worker’s race discrimination case to order a completely new trial, arguing that proceeding with a narrower trial just on the issue of damages would be unconstitutional.

Tesla’s lawyers in a filing in San Francisco federal court on Friday said jurors cannot determine how much the company should pay the worker, Owen Diaz, without first hearing all of the evidence about the alleged harassment that he faced at the company’s flagship Fremont, California assembly plant.

[…]

Diaz in a 2017 lawsuit said other employees used racist slurs and scrawled swastikas and slurs on bathroom walls at the plant. He also said one supervisor drew a racist caricature near his workstation.

A jury last year awarded Diaz $137 million, one of the largest verdicts ever in a discrimination case involving a single worker. Orrick in April said the evidence amply supported the jury’s finding that Tesla was liable for discrimination, but that the award was excessive and lowered it to $15 million.

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UNC-Chapel was also the target of a recent lawsuit alleging racial discrimination.

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