A former Tesla contract worker will not be able to appeal a judge’s decision to reduce a $137 million jury award to $15 million. The plaintiff, Owen Diaz, sued Tesla over claims he was subjected to racist insults at the company’s Fremont factory.
In a ruling issued on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Orrick stated that Diaz failed to articulate a “controlling matter of law” that would justify an appeal, reports Bloomberg.
The former contractor was given 14 days to accept or reject the $15 million award.
Following a seven-day trial in San Francisco earlier this year, Diaz was awarded one of the biggest awards in US history for an individual plaintiff in a racial discrimination case.
That award was later slashed from $137 million to $15 million by Orrick in April, citing earlier court opinions as justification.
Diaz’s lawyers tried to overturn the reduced award claiming that the court failed to account for inflation because the examples mentioned by the judge were from 10 and 25 years ago.
