Jury slashes payout to former Tesla worker who faced racist abuse

A San Francisco jury on Monday cut about 98 percent Tesla’s payout to a former contract worker who faced racist abuse while working with the company.

Owen Diaz, a Black ex-contractor of Tesla, won a $137 million lawsuit in 2021 against the company, but Bloomberg reports that a jury determined that Tesla only owes him $3.2 million.

Diaz said in his initial lawsuit that he endured “daily racist epithets,” including the N-word, during his time at a California factory.

Diaz had chosen a retrial last June after a judge decided the initial payout was too high.

The $137 million payout was the largest amount ever awarded to an individual who filed a lawsuit over discrimination, Bloomberg reported.

Diaz’s lawyer argued during the trial that Tesla should instead award Diaz $150 million in punitive damages.

During the retrial, the jury ultimately decided that he should receive $175,000 for non-economic damages and $3 million in punitive damages, according to court documents.

Another Tesla employee, Melvin Berry, was awarded a payout of $1 million by the company also for racial discrimination in 2021. Berry, who is also Black, worked at a California plant where his supervisors called him a racial slur.