Tesla has settled a long-running lawsuit by a black former factory worker who claimed he was subjected to severe racial harassment, according to a court filing Friday, as the electric car maker faces a series of other discrimination lawsuits. It was announced that.
Lawyers for Tesla and Owen Diaz, a former elevator operator at the company’s Fremont, Calif., assembly plant, did not provide details of the settlement in a filing in San Francisco federal court.
The agreement ends an appeal by both sides after a jury awarded Diaz $3.2 million in damages last year. Tesla has maintained that it is not responsible for the discrimination allegations, and Mr. Diaz has argued that the company’s lawyers engaged in misconduct and that a new trial is necessary.
In 2021, another jury awarded Diaz $137 million, one of the largest judgments ever for a discrimination case involving a single worker. But after Diaz refused the reduced $15 million in damages, the judge decided the verdict was excessive and ordered a new trial.
Diaz, who first sued Tesla in 2017, said that while working at the Fremont factory, he was subject to racial slurs, swastikas and other racist behavior on a daily basis, and that Tesla He claimed that his complaints were ignored.
Tesla and Diaz’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. The company said it does not tolerate discrimination and fired employees accused of racist behavior.
Tesla faces similar claims that it tolerates racial bias at its Fremont factory, including a pending class-action lawsuit on behalf of 6,000 workers and complaints from anti-bias authorities in California and the United States. Facing individual lawsuits and multiple lawsuits involving individual employees. The company denies any wrongdoing in these incidents.
