US jury orders Tesla to pay ex-employee $137 million over racism
A jury in California on Monday ordered Tesla to pay a Black former employee $137 million (€118m) in damages for turning a blind eye to racism the man encountered at the firm’s car plant in Fremont, US media reported. Owen Diaz was hired through a staffing agency as an lift operator at the electric vehicle maker’s Fremont factory between June 2015 and July 2016, where he was subjected to racist abuse and a hostile work environment, according to the court filing. In his lawsuit, Diaz said African-American employees at the factory, where his son also worked, were regularly subjected to racist epithets and derogatory imagery. Instead of a modern workplace, the plaintiffs “encountered a scene straight from the Jim Crow era,” said the suit, originally filed by Diaz, his son Demetric and a third former employee. “Tesla’s progressive image was a facade papering over its regressive, demeaning treatment of African-American employees,” the court filing said. Diaz alleged that despite complaints to supervisors, Tesla took no action over the regular racist abuse. The jury at the federal court in San Francisco on Monday awarded Diaz $130 million in punitive damages and $6.9 million for...