By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) was up 1% in Tuesday’s premarket trading, shrugging off an award of more than $130 million in damages against it in a case of racial harassment.
The plaintiff, Owen Diaz, worked as an elevator operator at the factory between 2015 and 2016. The company was sued by the black former worker over charges that its San Francisco Bay area factory was hostile to him and that it was negligent in its supervision or retention of an employee. Diaz also alleged that the company failed to prevent his racial harassment.
“While we strongly believe that these facts don’t justify the verdict reached by the jury in San Francisco, we do recognize that in 2015 and 2016 we were not perfect. We’re still not perfect. But we have come a long way from 5 years ago. We continue to grow and improve in how we address employee concerns,” Valerie Capers Workman, Tesla’s vice president of people, wrote to staff in an email.
It is the second time in recent months that the electric-vehicle maker has been found liable in a case of alleged racial discrimination.
Melvin Berry, another black former Tesla worker, won a $1 million relief in May after an arbitrator found that he was called racial slurs by his supervisors at the Fremont factory.
Tesla faces similar claims in California state court, where a former Tesla assembly worker, Marcus Vaughn has sued, alleging Tesla created a hostile environment for blacks.