Tesla must face racism class action from 6,000 Black workers, judge rules

Black factory workers can sue Tesla collectively; trial set for October 2024.

JON BRODKIN – 2/29/2024, 2:21 PM

Tesla must face a class-action lawsuit from nearly 6,000 Black people who allege that they faced discrimination and harassment while working at the company’s Fremont factory, a California judge rule

The tentative ruling from Alameda County Superior Court “certifies a class defined as the specific approximately 5,977 persons self-identified as Black/African-American who worked at Tesla during the class period from November 9, 2016, through the date of the entry of this order to prosecute the claims in the complaint.”

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The tentative ruling was issued Tuesday by Judge Noël Wise. Tesla can contest the ruling at a hearing on Friday, but tentative rulings are generally finalized without major changes.

The case started years ago. An amended complaint in 2017 alleged that Tesla “created an intimidating, hostile, and offensive work environment for Black and/or African-American employees that includes a routine use of the terms ‘N****r’ and ‘N***a’ and other racially derogatory terms, and racist treatment and images at Tesla’s production facility in Fremont, California.”

The plaintiffs’ motion was not approved in its entirety. A request for class certification was denied for all people who are not on the list of class members.

However, plaintiffs will have five days to provide an updated list of class members. Anyone not on the list “may if they wish seek individual remedies through filing civil actions, through arbitration, or otherwise,” the ruling said.Advertisement

Plaintiffs “heard the n-word” at factory

A class-action trial is scheduled to begin on October 14, 2024, the same day as a separate case against Tesla brought by the California Civil Rights Department (CRD).

As Wise’s ruling noted, “The CRD has filed and is pursuing a parallel law enforcement action that is alleging a pattern and practice of failing to prevent discrimination and harassment and seeking an injunction that would require Tesla to institute policies and procedures that will do a better job of preventing and redressing discrimination and harassment at Tesla. The EEOC [US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] has filed a similar action.”

In the class action, plaintiffs submitted “declarations from 240 persons who stated that they observed discrimination or harassment at the Tesla Fremont facility and that some complained about it,” Wise wrote. “Of the 240 plaintiff declarations, all stated that they heard the n-word at the Tesla Fremont facility, 112 state that they complained to a supervisor, manager or HR about discrimination, but only 16 made written complaints.”

Tesla submitted declarations from 228 people “who generally stated that they did not observe discrimination or harassment at the Tesla Fremont facility or that if they observed it then Tesla took ‘immediate and appropriate corrective action,'” Wise wrote.

Tesla also said it “created a centralized internal tracking system to document complaints and investigations” in 2017 and will rely on this database “to demonstrate that Tesla was aware of complaints about race discrimination and harassment and how it responded to the complaints.”

Plaintiffs must seek damages individually

To obtain class certification, plaintiffs had to show that their claims could be presented with “common evidence,” Wise wrote. The ruling found “that there are common issues of fact that can be determined with common evidence regarding whether Tesla had a pattern or practice of” failing to take enough action against discrimination and harassment.

Instead of a single trial on aggregate liability and aggregate damages, damages would be determined individually for each class member. The common issues of fact are sufficient to determine whether Tesla should be hit with an injunction, but not sufficient enough to determine “whether any individual class member was discriminated against or harassed,” Wise wrote.

“As a matter of law, a single trial on aggregate liability and aggregate damages is not appropriate where the members of the class seek aggregate emotional distress damages,” the ruling said.

Two-phase trial for injunction and damages

As a result, the class-action trial will have two phases. “In Phase I the jury will decide the issues of whether Tesla had a pattern or practice of ‘fail[ing] to take all reasonable steps necessary to prevent discrimination and harassment from occurring’ and whether when Tesla ‘[knew] or should have known of this conduct [it failed] to take immediate and appropriate corrective action,'” the order said.Advertisement

After the first phase, “the court will enter any appropriate injunctive relief,” the order said. A second phase would allow class members to pursue financial damages individually.

“In Phase II the individual members of the class will pursue their individual claims for damages in jury trials that are part of this class action,” the order said. “In Phase II Tesla may assert that any member of the class must pursue their claims in arbitration. The findings in the Phase I trial will be evidence in the Phase II trials, but the findings in the Phase I trial will not alter the burden of proof in the Phase II trials.”

Tesla called the lawsuit a “hotbed of misinformation” after it was filed in 2017, countering the lawsuit’s claim that the Tesla factory is a “hotbed for racist behavior.” Tesla said it investigated a complaint from plaintiff Marcus Vaughn and fired three employees in what it called a “fair and just response to the facts that we learned.”

In a separate case filed by one person in a federal court, former Tesla factory worker Owen Diaz initially won a $137 million award for racist abuse. But the jury’s verdict was lowered to $15 million by a judge. Diaz rejected the $15 million payout, and a new jury trial awarded him $3.2 million instead. Diaz and Tesla are both appealing the $3.2 million ruling.