Jury orders Tesla to pay more than $130 million in discrimination suit, which alleged racist epithets and hostile environment at factory

Plaintiff Owen Diaz, an elevator operator who worked for the company between June 2015 and May 2016, sued alleging a hostile work environment and racial harassment, including that “daily racist epithets” such as the n-word were used in the factory, where his son Demetric also worked. The initial suit by Diaz, who is Black, alleged that workers encountered a scene “straight from the Jim Crow era” where workers were subject to frequent racist harassment and supervisors took no action.