Tesla and a black man who worked at the company’s California factory have settled a long-running discrimination case that drew attention to the electric vehicle maker’s treatment of minorities.
Owen Diaz, who was awarded nearly $3.2 million by a federal jury last April, has reached a “final and binding settlement agreement that fully resolves all claims,” according to a document filed Friday in U.S. District Court. United States in San Francisco.
The document, which provides no details on the settlement, says both sides agree that the matter has been resolved and that the case against the company run by Elon Musk can be dismissed.
Messages seeking details were left Saturday by Tesla’s lawyers and Lawrence Organ, Diaz’s lawyer.
The April verdict was the second handed down in Diaz’s case seeking to hold Tesla accountable for allowing him to be subjected to racist epithets and other abuse during his brief tenure at the Fremont, California, factory run by the pioneering automaker .
But the eight-person jury in the latest five-day trial arrived at a significantly lower damages figure than the $137 million Diaz won in his first trial in 2021. U.S. District Judge William Orrick reduced that award to $15 million, prompting Diaz and his lawyers to ask for a new trial rather than accept the lower amount.
In November, Organ filed a notice that Diaz would appeal the $3.2 million verdict, and Tesla filed a notice of cross-appeal.
The case, which dates back to 2017, centers on allegations that Tesla took no action to stop a racist culture at the factory located about 40 miles (65 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco. Diaz said he was called the “n-word” more than 30 times, shown racist cartoons and told to “go back to Africa” during his roughly nine-month tenure at Tesla, which ended in 2016.
The Tesla plant itself is in the crosshairs of a racial discrimination case brought by California regulators. Tesla has adamantly denied the allegations made in state court and has retaliated by accusing regulators of abusing their authority. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a similar complaint in September.
Musk, Tesla’s CEO and largest shareholder, moved the company’s headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas, in 2021, partly due to tensions with various California agencies over practices at the Fremont factory.