March 27 (Reuters) – A trial kicked off in San Francisco federal courtroom on Monday to find out how a lot cash Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) should pay to a Black elevator operator whom a jury decided was subjected to extreme racial harassment whereas working on the electrical auto maker’s flagship meeting plant.
A lawyer for plaintiff Owen Diaz advised a jury throughout opening statements that the racist slurs, graffiti and threats his consumer confronted have been a part of a “plantation mentality” on the Fremont, California manufacturing unit the place Black staff have been handled as second-class residents.
“You’ll conclude that Tesla’s conduct … is a acutely aware determination to not defend African American workers inside their office,” the lawyer, Bernard Alexander, stated.
The trial is scheduled to final 5 days. Final yr, a decide slashed the $137 million verdict {that a} totally different jury awarded in 2021 to Diaz, one of many largest ever in a U.S. office discrimination case, to $15 million. Diaz’s legal professionals rejected the decrease payout and opted for a brand new trial on damages.
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Tesla, advised the jury that any racist conduct on the plant was indefensible. However he recommended that Diaz was exaggerating his claims and couldn’t show that he suffered psychological injury warranting cash damages.
“There may be nearly no proof of something you simply heard apart from a lawyer saying it occurred eight years later,” Spiro stated.
As on the final trial, Diaz and several other workers and managers on the Fremont plant are anticipated to testify.
In his 2017 lawsuit, Diaz accused Tesla of failing to behave when he complained to managers in 2015 that workers on the manufacturing unit steadily used racist slurs and scrawled swastikas, racist caricatures and epithets on partitions and workstations.
Diaz sued Tesla for inflicting him emotional misery beneath a California legislation prohibiting employers from failing to forestall hostile work environments based mostly on race and different protected traits.
The jury in 2021 awarded Diaz almost $7 million in compensatory damages for emotional misery, and $130 million in punitive damages, designed to punish illegal conduct and deter it sooner or later.
U.S. District Decide William Orrick final yr decreased the compensatory damages to $1.5 million and the punitive damages to $13.5 million. He stated that sum acknowledged the pervasive harassment Diaz confronted whereas reflecting that he had labored on the manufacturing unit for less than 9 months and had not alleged any bodily harm or sickness.
Employment discrimination circumstances hardly ever yield verdicts of greater than $1 million, not to mention nine-figure sums. The U.S. Supreme Courtroom has stated punitive damages usually must be not more than 10 instances compensatory damages.
Tesla additionally faces claims of tolerating widespread race bias on the Fremont plant in a category motion in California state courtroom and a separate lawsuit by the state’s civil rights watchdog making comparable allegations. Each circumstances are nonetheless in early phases.
The end result of Diaz’s trial won’t straight have an effect on these lawsuits or different courtroom circumstances, however may encourage staff to file new lawsuits towards the corporate because it battles mounting challenges to its dominance of the electrical automobile market.
Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Enhancing by Alexia Garamfalvi, David Gregorio and Richard Chang
: .
