Black Former Tesla Worker Awarded More Than $130M in Damages | Hacker News Reader

Black Former Tesla Worker Awarded More Than $130M in Damages

wsj.com

32 pointsfortran7719 comments

This case would probably lead to unintended consequences, s.a. not hiring persons of color because now, those employees can easily put company on a hook for millions, unintentionally or by "staging/hoaxing" harassment situation. Why risk it? Similar situation was in the countries that introduced compulsory maternity leave. New hiring of females 21-25 years old dropped precipitously. Also, this would probably make any business to consider leaving jurisdictions where such verdicts occur.

> New hiring of females 21-25 years old dropped precipitously

Do you have a source for this? It seems odd (especially the age, given that a lot more women around me have kids much later than that).

https://www.tesla.com/blog/regarding-todays-jury-verdict

Company PR on a lost court case is of extremely little value. It's absolutely going to be spin and try to paint an extremely one-sided picture where they're somehow the victims of their own actions.

It's why cases are decided in courts, and not by "who has the more expensive PR department".

Cases are decided by juries (folks like you and I). In any case, its always worth it to read the other side of the story.

https://archive.is/ZpVNt

Fun fact that I just learned: trying to access archive.is with iCloud Private Relay enabled causes an infinite captcha loop.

I'd like to see the Math for that one, and how they decided $130M was the right number, but 130k or 130G was not the right number...

punitive damages - that is, the fine is designed to be large enough to stop a company from being able to just budget in fines and ignore the law.

That won't be the final settlement, just as in the McDonald's hot coffee incident they'll have a final out of court settlement for a much lower amount.

Isn't your second paragraph contradicting the first? If the final amount is much smaller then it won't be punitive.

No. It’s theoretical vs actual.

Does mr Diaz receive the punitive portion or just the smaller portion?

I wonder how much of that will end in his lawyer's pocket.

Assuming your innuendo is correct, who do you consider this an injustice towards, Tesla or Owen Diaz?

I'm not sure where you see an "innuendo" about injustice in what I wrote. It's a candid question on the rather common practice of law firms taking a cut of the settlements they manage to obtain for their clients.

Usually it's one third if the case was taken on contingency. They might have done it pro bono though in which case it would be zero

sorry, my bad. I'm just reactive to a lot of SV/tech libertarian culture that tends to minimize racism and sexism, often using sarcasm.

This is the only breakdown given in the article:

The jury, after roughly four hours of deliberation, found in favor of Mr. Diaz on all claims and ordered Tesla to pay Mr. Diaz $6.9 million in compensatory damages and $130 million in punitive damages.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com