A jury ordered Tesla to pay $137 million to Owen Diaz, a black former employee who accused the carmaker of ignoring racial abuse, his lawyer, Lawrence Organ, said late Monday.
“It’s a great thing when one of the richest corporations in America assesses the disgusting conditions in its factory for black people,” Mr. Organ of the California Civil Rights Law Group said in an interview.
The decision by jury, in federal court in San Francisco, was first reported by Bloomberg News. Tesla’s lawyers did not immediately provide comment.
in that preliminary testDiaz said he worked as an elevator operator at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, Calif., for about a year in 2015 and 2016. There, he said, a supervisor and other colleagues referred to him repeatedly using racial slurs. He also said that employees had left pictures of derogatory cartoons of black children around the factory.