[ALittleLight]

There'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-f...

[invalidname]

In some European countries you get fined based on your income. So if a billionaire is caught speeding he can get a speeding ticket for millions of dollars.

This isn't about him. It's about the company the proved negligent. Had the amount been lower they would have just moved on and added it as "the cost of doing business". The Jury did this strictly for punishment. They also want other companies to see this verdict, settle and get their act together. It was 2015 and an employee complains about sexual harassment or racism... You should have listened. At least you will from now on. This is on Tesla.

[Gibbon1]

All 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.

[tzs]

Or 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?

[ipspam]

I find this the most reasonable answer to my comment.

[okaramian]

So whats an appropriate amount for a company to pay out when a coworker is called the n-word repeatedly and the company opts to turn a blind eye?

[ohgodplsno]

How will the poor multibillionaires survive if they can't abuse their employees :(

[ALittleLight]

This 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?"