His doctor ticked the box - he could do the job. Then came the meeting
An eight-year Tesla veteran alleges the company used its own accommodation process to force him out of his job.
The worker, a Quality Engineering Technician 3 at Tesla's Gigafactory Nevada, filed a federal lawsuit on October 6 claiming disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, and retaliation after Tesla allegedly removed him from his role, placed him on involuntary unpaid leave, and left him without a path back.
According to the complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Nevada, the worker was the first engineering technician hired into the Gigafactory's GigaLab. Over more than eight years, he trained technicians, engineers, and cross-functional personnel and became a go-to resource across technical work, safety, maintenance, and machine-shop operations. He had no history of discipline or poor performance.
He has a lower-back condition that limits prolonged walking, lifting, bending, and twisting. For years, though, it was a non-issue. The GigaLab operated as a team - technicians routinely swapped tasks and helped each other out. Only about two tests in the entire lab were especially tough during flare-ups, and the team handled those without any formal process.
Then things shifted.
The complaint alleges that after new supervision arrived, the worker's disability and medically necessary absences started being treated as problems. During the first half of 2025, he took approved...
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