A deaf technician at Tesla’s Texas Gigafactory says he was assigned to a position melting aluminum ingots at 1,220°F, a temperature which caused his hearing aids to fail, making it all but impossible for him to hear alarms, alerts and other audible safety signals.
In response, Hans Kohls requested a transfer away from the “extreme heat and moisture” of the Austin plant’s casting department, where the conditions “far exceed[ed] standard industrial heat levels,” according to a lawsuit obtained by The Independent.
But rather than accommodating Kohls under the framework of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Tesla fired him instead, stripping the 36-year-old and his wife of their health insurance while she was pregnant, his complaint alleges.
It contends the Elon Musk-owned electric carmaker “never explored whether alternative safety measures – such as visual alarms, vibrating alerts or buddy systems – could address any safety concern in the Casting Department,” and claims the company lied about other open positions that Kohls, who was at the very top of his training class, could have filled.
“The facts of this case are stark and troubling,” attorney Andrew Rozynski, who is representing Kohls, told The Independent. “Tesla had a highly qualified employee who requested the most basic accommodation under the ADA, reassignment to a vacant position where he’d already demonstrated success. Instead of complying with the law, they fired him within nine days and told him he was being ‘medically separated.’”
Kohls “outperformed his peers in Tesla’s own training program, successfully worked in multiple departments at the Gigafactory, and asked for nothing more than reassignment to a role where extreme heat wouldn’t damage his hearing aids,” Rozynski said. “Tesla’s response? Termination. The ADA exists precisely to prevent this kind of discrimination.”
A Tesla spokesperson did not respond on Wednesday to a request for comment.
In February 2024, Kohls applied for the Tesla START program, an intensive internship designed to train participants for full-time jobs as equipment technicians at the company, according to Kohls’s complaint, which was filed November 10 in federal court.
Although Kohls is deaf, his hearing aids, when functioning properly, “allow him to effectively communicate and hear necessary alarms, alerts, and verbal communication in workplace environments,” the complaint states. As proof, the complaint says Kohls “has a successful history of working in industrial environments, including at GST America, where he worked in a hot and loud environment for over a year without issue.”
Accordingly, Kohls “truthfully answered ‘yes’ to whether he could receive safety signals using ‘auditory (hearing) sense,’” the complaint goes on, noting that Kohls “successfully demonstrated” this fact while training in multiple departments throughout the Gigafactory.
At the end of the month, Kohls sat for a Zoom interview with a casting department supervisor, who noticed Kohls’s hearing aids and “became aware of his disability,” the complaint continues. It says the supervisor asked if Kohls was comfortable working in a “hot environment,” to which he said he was, citing his time at GST America, which supplies equipment to the semiconductor industry.
“Neither the application nor the interview disclosed that the Casting Department’s extreme heat and humidity conditions would far exceed standard industrial heat levels,” the complaint states. “The Casting Department utilizes high-pressure die-casting operations that melt aluminum at approximately 1,220°F. Mr. Kohls could not have reasonably anticipated these specific conditions would cause his hearing aids to malfunction until he experienced them firsthand.”
Tesla hired Kohls into the START program on March 11, 2024, and sent him to a stringent 10-week course at Austin Community College that focused on robotics and manufacturing, according to the complaint. It says Kohls “excelled in the program, achieving a final grade of 95.7 percent, earning certification, and placing him in the top tier of his cohort.”
After Kohls finished his training, he was sent to the Austin Gigafactory to get hands-on experience as an equipment technician, the complaint explains. He shadowed workers in various departments, such as vehicle validation, which ensures each car’s components and systems function properly, and the drive unit, which produces the electric motors, inverters and reduction gears that power a Tesla, according to the complaint.
“In these departments, the working temperatures were significantly cooler [than those he would later encounter in the Casting Department], his hearing aids functioned properly, and he performed successfully and communicated effectively without the need for an ASL interpreter,” the complaint states.
However, it says Tesla assigned Kohls to the casting department, where his hearing aids soon went on the fritz due to the “extreme conditions” there. Without them Kohls couldn’t “reliably” hear safety signals meant to warn the workers of danger, according to the complaint.
In mid-June 2024, Kohls submitted a reasonable accommodation request to Tesla HR, asking for a transfer out of casting and into a department where the heat wouldn’t damage his hearing aids. He submitted all necessary medical documentation, as required, and complied fully with company protocols, but Tesla “subsequently determined it could not accommodate Mr. Kohls,” the complaint alleges.
“Tesla never discussed with Mr. Kohls what positions were available or why reassignment was not feasible,” it says. “Tesla failed to inquire whether Mr. Kohls could perform in other departments – despite his documented success in Vehicle Validation and Drive Unit. Tesla failed to explain why vacant Equipment Technician positions in other departments were unavailable.”
The company also “failed to conduct an individualized assessment of Mr. Kohls’ actual capabilities in suitable environments,” and allegedly “never explored” alternative safety measures, according to the complaint. Rather, it claims Tesla “rigidly focused only on his inability to work in the Casting Department,” prioritizing its own internal policies “over its ADA obligations,” and “prematurely ended the interactive process.”
Tesla improperly told Kohls that there were no other open jobs available and that the START program “prohibited transfers,” although there were in fact plenty of “suitable vacant positions” for which he was already trained and could have filled, the complaint states.
On June 20, 2024, nine days after Kohls requested a disability accommodation, Tesla terminated his employment, telling him he was being “medically separated,” the complaint says. (An audio recording of the meeting confirms this, according to the complaint.)
“By characterizing the termination as ‘medical separation,’ Tesla revealed it was terminating Mr. Kohls because he had a disability that required accommodation – not for any legitimate, non-discriminatory reason,” the complaint alleges.
Tesla continued to post “help wanted” ads for appropriate open roles, and shortly after he was let go, Kohls applied for two of them – and was summarily rejected for both, according to the complaint.
The complaint says Tesla’s treatment of Kohls violated the ADA and the Texas state labor code, leading to severe emotional distress, anxiety, depression, mental anguish, humiliation and embarrassment. He further lost career opportunities, endured harm to his professional reputation and marriage, and suffered “significant” financial damages, the complaint contends.
Tesla has faced numerous lawsuits by other employees who have gone public with what they described as unacceptable working conditions.
In August, a group of workers at Tesla’s manufacturing plant in Fremont, California, sued the company for allegedly turning a blind eye to sexual assaults aboard company shuttle buses, drug and alcohol use onsite, all-out brawls between employees and “prevalent” bigotry – including widespread use of the “N-word.”
A month later, a Tesla robotics technician at the same Fremont factory sued for $51 million after he says an out-of-control robot suddenly swung its mechanical arm and knocked him unconscious, leaving the 50-year-old grievously injured and struggling to pay astronomical medical bills.
Earlier this year, a former Tesla executive sued, claiming he agreed to take a job working remotely for the company, which then almost immediately went back on its word and threatened to fire him if he didn’t relocate to Texas from his home in Southern California. This, according to the exec’s lawsuit, prompted the recurrence of his Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome and nearly ended his marriage.
Kohls is now asking a judge to reinstate him to an appropriate position at Tesla and to declare the company in violation of the ADA and the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act. Alternatively, he is seeking front pay and back pay, lost wages, benefits, retirement contributions and stock options, in addition to compensatory damages, punitive damages and exemplary damages for Tesla’s “malicious and/or recklessly indifferent conduct,” as well as pre-judgment interest, post-judgment interest, plus attorneys’ fees and court costs.
Tesla has not yet filed a formal response to Kohls’s allegations.
