The multimillion-dollar award is a lot less than what was given in the case before, which was brought by a former worker.
In a lawsuit, Tesla was ordered to pay $3.2 million because it didn't stop racial harassment at its main assembly plant in the United States.
On Monday, a federal jury in San Francisco, California, gave Owen Diaz, a Black worker who used to work at Tesla's factory in Fremont, $175,000 for emotional distress and $3 million in punitive damages.
Diaz says that Tesla didn't do anything when he said he was being harassed all the time as a lift operator from 2015 to 2016.
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There were supposedly racial slurs, insulting caricatures, and swastikas written on the walls of toilets.
The decision made on Monday, though, is a big drop from what a jury first gave Diaz in 2021. In what was one of the biggest punishments for workplace discrimination in US history, the jury gave the worker $7 million for emotional distress and $130 million in punitive damages.
Later, US District Judge William Orrick cut that amount down to $15 million, saying that it was the "highest award supported by the evidence." He pointed to a Supreme Court case that says punitive damages shouldn't be more than 10 times the amount of other damages.
Orrick, on the other hand, agreed with the jury's decision that Tesla was responsible for damages. He said that the evidence in the case was "disturbing."
But Diaz chose to have a new trial so that the damages in his case could be looked at again. He told the jury last week how the racism he had to deal with hurt his mental health and caused problems between him and his son, who also worked for Tesla.
His lawyer, Bernard Alexander, asked the jury to give him $160 million in damages on Friday. This would send a message to big companies like Tesla that racist behavior is not okay.
California law says that employers must take "reasonable steps" to deal with wrongdoing at work, such as harassment based on race, gender, or other protected categories.
Alexander told the jury that Mr. Diaz's view of the world will never be the same again.
"That's what happens when a person doesn't feel safe."
Lawyers for Tesla, on the other hand, said that Diaz was rude and made things up. They also didn't like how Diaz wanted damages to be higher.
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Tesla, told the jury, "They're just throwing numbers up on the screen like this is some kind of game show."
Friday, Diaz's lawyers asked for a mistrial after Tesla's lawyers questioned witnesses about racist and sexual comments Diaz is said to have made. But Judge Orrick turned down the motion because he didn't agree that the questions would make the jury think differently.
After Monday's verdict, Diaz could still ask for a new trial or ask the judge to look at the verdict again.
Diaz's case is just one of many that have been filed against Tesla alleging a hostile work environment. In all of these cases, Tesla has denied doing anything wrong.
One former worker filed a lawsuit against the company for "widespread sexual harassment." Last June, 15 current and former employees also filed a class-action lawsuit in a California state court. They said they were regularly treated badly because of their race.
They said that Tesla's "standard operating procedures" seemed to include "blatant, open, and unmasked race discrimination."
And in February, several workers at a plant in Buffalo, New York, filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board saying that Tesla was using unfair labor practices. They said they were fired unfairly because they tried to organize a union at the plant.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
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