8 ms·
Tesla Ordered to Pay Worker $137M for Racism at Plant
- htrp 5y agohttps://archive.is/aKlPN https://archive.is/aKlPN
- ipspam 5y ago$137 million? That's a lesson. Don't do business in California.
- olliej 5y agoPunitive damages exist in every state, and exist because without them corporations are able to simply budget in the cost of breaking the law. That's why the McDonalds hot coffee incident was so large (they were breaking the law, the woman originally only sued for the few thousand in health insurance copays, the bulk of the fine was because McDs had had the same law suits with different people multiple times but continued to break the law)
- iab 5y agoWell, it could also be about not being racist
- okaramian 5y agoSo calling your employees the n-word is ok in Texas?
- rargramble 5y agoObjectively, is it a $137m offense?
- okaramian 5y agoCourts seem to believe so? So yeah? How much do you think it should cost a company when a company allows blatantly racist behavior in the workplace and does nothing about it?
- sayonaraman 5y agoMost likely this is a hoax like all the other fake “hate crimes” or recent years e.g. that story with a “noose” in the garage or black students writing racist graffiti on campus Some do it for attention, others for financial gain https://www.espn.com/racing/nascar/story/_/id/29354447/fbi-says-rope-had-talladega-garage-last-fall-bubba-wallace-not-victim-hate-crime https://www.espn.com/racing/nascar/story/_/id/29354447/fbi-s... https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/black-student-admits-to-writing-racist-graffiti-in-parkway-central-bathrooms/article_7b5f7146-aeac-5f50-badb-00e7226907a9.html https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/black-student-... https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hoax-missouri-school-district-racist-graffiti-painted-non-white-student https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hoax-missouri-school-distri...
- camdat 5y agoDo you assume that neither Tesla nor the court did due diligence in confirming the allegations before bringing this to court?
- sayonaraman 5y agoThese things are easy to fake and hard to disprove, especially in the current political climate
- throwawayraci 5y agoThe question isn't is it okay. The question is: is it $137mm okay.
- ALittleLight 5y agoThere's a world of difference between thinking this is okay and thinking that 137 million dollars for facing racist insults and graffiti is appropriate. For context, a worker who was cooked to death in a Tuna processing facility was awarded the largest wrongful death settlement in California of 6 million dollars. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/12/bumble-bee-foods-settlement-man-cooked-death-tuna https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/12/bumble-bee-f...
- ohgodplsno 5y agoHow will the poor multibillionaires survive if they can't abuse their employees :(
- ALittleLight 5y agoThis guy says the people he worked with called him racist names and he saw racist graffiti in the bathroom. It's not like Elon Musk was burning a cross on his lawn. Rather than worry about the billionaires you might worry how companies will do business if they are subject to massive penalties for racist word use among their employees. "Hey boss, wanna call me racist names for a bit, write some in the bathroom, and split a hundred million?"
- Gibbon1 5y agoAll the $137M award says is the Jury found itself really pissed off at Tesla. It's basically a notice that Tesla might consider settling these types of claims in the future instead of wasting the Jury's time.
- ipspam 5y agoI find this the most reasonable answer to my comment.
- tzs 5y agoOr they will keep handling these claims the way they always have: they go to mandatory arbitration which either decides it is not racism or awards the claimant a small amount, and in either case Tesla doesn't take any serious action to prevent future occurrences. This one only went through the courts instead of arbitration because it involved someone who they did not have under an arbitration agreement. I'm not sure why they did not have an arbitration agreement. The person was a contract worker employed by a staffing agency rather than directly employed by Tesla, so maybe Tesla thought for some reason that would protect them?
- staticautomatic 5y agoMost of the award is punitive damages, and it’ll (edit: probably) be California law under which they’re dramatically reduced by the judge.
- procrastitron 5y agoThe article indicated it was a federal trial. California laws would not be a factor.
- randyrand 5y agoA San Francisco judge heard the case because this happened in Fremont (just a handful of miles away). So OP's point still applies.
- staticautomatic 5y agoState law claims are tried in federal courts all the time under subject matter jurisdiction and joinder rules. Both state and federal claims are probably at issue here. PACER would yield the answer.
- procrastitron 5y agoIt was a federal trial.
- Trias11 5y agoBusinesses and any productive individuals for that matter can't move fast enough out of this cesspool. You look a wrong way and someone's gonna pull a race card on you, happily assisted by the closest ambulance chaser.
- completelylegit 5y agoThe ruling happened in a federal court.
- throwawayraci 5y agoThrowaway for obvious reasons, but you could say pretty much anything you want to me for that kind of paycheck. Too bad there's nothing you could say to a white guy that would let me cash in like that.
- sofixa 5y agoSexual harassment.
- sinuhe69 5y ago130 millions damage payment to ONE person? Is that not an insanely ridiculous amount? Such things are unimaginable in Europe or elsewhere.
- ChainOfFools 5y agohow lucky we are as a civilization that technology has not yet made a similar punitive equation feasible for time as it is for money. i.e., imagine if it worked this way for penalty of incarceration, where your mugger forfeits 10 years of their life, and transfers them to you, extending your own by the same amount - less attorneys' fees, of course.
- tmmx 5y agohttps://m.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/
- sitkack 5y agoONE corporation, will it notice?
- somerandomqaguy 5y agoWashington Post is saying it's $6.9M in emotional damages and $130M in punitive damages. US Gov case info is here: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06748/summary https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06...
- sayonaraman 5y agojust write a graffiti on a restroom wall and walk out a rich man
- carlivar 5y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_damages https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_damages Basically, the amount is intended to set an example and prevent re-occurence.
- tpmx 5y agoTesla's POV: https://www.tesla.com/blog/regarding-todays-jury-verdict https://www.tesla.com/blog/regarding-todays-jury-verdict
- Misinf0rmation 5y agoThe Plaintiff's POV: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.319709/gov.uscourts.cand.319709.57.0_1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.31... tl;dr Tesla gas lit the dude
- Misinf0rmation 5y agoand Tesla's previous blog post on factory racism. https://www.tesla.com/blog/hotbed-misinformation https://www.tesla.com/blog/hotbed-misinformation
- m0zg 5y agoSounds like they intend to pay. I'm surprised. I'd fight it if those are the actual facts as seen from their end. But I suppose the veracity is an issue no matter which side you listen to.
- randyrand 5y agoFor that kind of money I think we're going to be seeing a lot more employees accuse their employers of racism.
- CheezeIt 5y agoAt least among those that can land a jury in San Francisco.
- spaetzleesser 5y agoI assume they will have to provide proof that the company ignored these issues.
- bserge 5y agoShit, time to start recording interactions with everyone, I guess. Would've gotten enough evidence for a bunch of cases over the past 6 months alone lol
- colinb 5y agoWere you being abused for your skin colour? Your religion? Your sexuality? Your age? Were you abused by your supervisor? Did their mgmt chain minimize the harm this did, or did they tell you to suck it up or you've never make it in the big leagues? Did you eventually make it in the big leagues? I'd love to know the algorithm used to arrive at this amount of money, because it seems quite large to me, but I'm very happy to see any company that countenances this sort of nonsense hurt financially. Big companies are not your friend. They're not your enemy. They're just doing what they think they need to. If safeguarding profits requires that they _actually_ enforce rules about racist abuse, then by all means, sue them 'til the pips squeak. LOL.
- carlsborg 5y agoWhat is the job function of an elevator operator in a fully automated manufacturing facility?
- thisistesla 5y ago> What is the job function of an elevator operator in a fully automated manufacturing facility? It's Tesla after all - fully automated manufacturing facility doesn't mean a human isn't needed to operate. Just like Tesla's fully automated driving doesn't mean a human isn't expected to be at the wheel.
- 12ian34 5y agoit's a deterrent. you know, just like the death penalty that some states of the country in which most of the readers here reside.