Tesla racial discrimination case will be retrial

According to foreign media reports, a federal judge in California on June 27 ordered a reopening of the case between Tesla Inc. and a black former employee who accused Tesla of racial discrimination.Previously, the employee rejected $15 million in compensation.

San Francisco District Judge William Orrick granted Tesla's motion for retrial a week after the former Tesla elevator operator, Owen Diaz, said he would not accept the judge's ruling.

In October, a jury awarded Diaz $137 million, the largest ever awarded in a worker discrimination case.Judge Orrick said in April that Tesla was responsible for the discrimination against Diaz, but he found the damages too high and reduced it to $15 million.

Image credit: Tesla

Diaz's lawyers said last week that the lowering of the damages was an unjust decision and that it undermined Diaz's constitutional right to a trial by jury.Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Diaz's lawyer Lawrence Organ said: "We hope that the new jury will see the evidence in a similar light to the first jury and that Mr Diaz deserves the justice that the jury system offers him."

In a lawsuit filed in 2017, Diaz claimed that his colleagues and a supervisor at Tesla's Fremont, California assembly plant subjected him to a hostile work environment that included racist slogans, caricatures and swastikas .

Tesla is currently facing a series of lawsuits over widespread racial discrimination and sexual harassment at the Fremont factory, including a lawsuit brought by California's civil rights agency.

This month, a Tesla shareholder filed a lawsuit accusing the company's CEO Elon Musk and its board of ignoring workers' complaints and contributing to a poor workplace culture.Tesla has denied wrongdoing and said the company has policies to prevent and address workplace misconduct.