Fighting TESLA for Defaming me after speaking up

Hi everyone, 

My name is Cristina Balan. I am a passionate automotive woman engineer who was part of Tesla for quite a few years... making quite a few of significant contributions to Tesla’s success from whatTesla’s Sr management had testified recently.  

I did loved Tesla and the idea behind it. My methodologies and ideas are still used today. It was an amazing team until I was faced with serious quality, safety and discrimination issues and I decided to speak up.

My entire team stood up for me and share their harass and bullying stories every time they tried to point out a quality or Even more criterial a Safety issue, in a long long meeting with our VP. That moment made me realize how strong we are if we stick together, but That made Tesla reacted in a way I never thought possible...

Every single person got threatened on one on one meeting to drop their complaints as the evidence are showing. Some even sent emails to our VP expressing the harassment they were exposed to after the meeting that the VP sweared he will keep it secret.

I couldn’t bare to see the injustice and the treatment we were all in, so as painful as it is I have to admit I truly believe in Elon Musk bullshit PR propaganda on how much he cares about his team and the quality and Safety of its product so after I consult with some VPs I emailed the almighty Elon Musk. Informed him of what is happening including the fact I have recording conversation of harassment, quality and safety issues.

He never replied to me... for a long time I strongly believe he didn’t get it! I was wrong!

Days later after this email, I was asked by sr in house legal counsel to send my resignation or if I’m not Tesla will make sure to deport all my teammates back to Mexico and the rest to Europe. Tesla’s legal told me they make sure none of them will never work in US again....

***

Soon after I’ve got into an arbitration lawsuit with Tesla based on misclassification, wrongful termination And gender discrimination in which I won some of the claims and Tesla had to pay the cost and fees.
Even if I won, I was not given the amount I should have, only 15% some of the critical reasons were: because I dare to roll my eyes and cross my legs when Tesla’s witnesses were talking...

In the same time the arbitrator admitting that Tesla and his IT experts couldn’t explain a peculiar “glitch” that eat all my emails, and out of the blue some email appeared from a time frame in whichTesla testified the entire company world wide and they’ve lost all the emails backup!
That was a lie as I asked my friends that were still in Tesla! 

But hey when you are an arbitrator and you put on a balance “rolling eyes/crossing hands” and on the other side of the balance  JAMS client with an endless bank account with “a small temper of evidence” of course the decision was obvious!

It is worth mentioning that during the hearings of this pathetic and corrupt arbitration I was asked by Tesla to settle more then is worth mentioning, (one even in the first day or the hearing), the first one during mediation we had, in which I was ok with everything if I have a written letter signed my Musk or his infinite number of lawyers that he read my emails and listen to my recordings!

I had the same response every time, Never, but every time the amount of the settlement was going up. I never accept the settlement without that.

Imagine how Stupid I felt when I realized Only After the decision was made, from the arbitrator final order that my own lawyers lied to me and they’ve drop my gender, discrimination and harassment claims by not mentioning anything about them in their final brief...

BUT most critical of all to find out that during the hearing The Arbitrator decided to make a SUA SPOTE decision after hearing my testimony and basically saying she has the right to know if Musk knew or not and force Tesla to give me the email that Elon Musk forward it to HR 7 minutes after I told him about critical and safety issues.

My Own lawyers Lied to me and hide a Sua Sponte decision to preserve the Image of the biggest Hypocrite I’ve known. 

***

Three in a half years later after I was forced to leave Tesla, an amazing reporter and author from Huffington Post, asked me a few times to allow him to write my story, which I did accept.  He did an amazing job to point out critical issues of my story, but that involved my emails that I sent to Elon Musk, which made Musk and Tesla realize people can start believing my story if they will find out that Musk did after I sent him the emails!

A few day later Tesla acted as they usually do with everyone who doesn’t please them, in a vendictive way and asked Huffington Post to add a note to the article, an outrageous note as big a the entire article full of despicable defamatory lies.

Since then I tried to make Tesla take the note down and apologize for what they’ve wrote, but they’ve refused every time I’ve asked.

***

On January 15, 2019 I filed my defamation case in federal court of Washington State, 

***

Here is how the case has played out so far;


Tesla’s Lawyers delayed the filing of the federal judge order regarding joint status report twice

In April, so they will not be late for the 3rd time with a filing they needed to submit, after they discovered they made a mistake in the report, instead of letting me know, they modified the report, forged my signature and file it without my permission.

I filed two motion for sanctions.

The  judge got upset to hear about Tesla’s behavior and asked us for a face to face hearing.

What did Tesla did? Instead of sending the lawyers who were involved in the case and for which I made those sanctions, Tesla sent the lawyer whois hire only to file the paperwork.
(for the one of you who are not familiar with the US law, a lawyer cannot file anything to a federal court if they don’t have a license for that state, so they hire someone who has only for that purpose if the main lawyers are from a different state like in my case)


The judge assistant asked him who are you? Where you the one who forged her signature and didn’t file what was asked of Tesla?
His answer was no.

 The judge continued by asking him why are Tesla’s lawyers not present? (The answer showed Everyone present in the room once again who Tesla really is)

Their Answer was: “for budgetary issues Tesla’s decided to not fly them from SF to Seattle”

As the conclusion on the hearing the federal judge called them obstructionists twice and order them to produce the name of the person who defined me in the next 48 hours.

Tesla did produce the name as the judge ordered them, which was no other than Dave Arnold. 
Three days later Arnold announced he will leave Tesla...


Next: Tesla made a motion to compel arbitration with an oral argument!

In June, after my first oral argument(a lot of first for me for the past few years) and after reviewing all the evidence and arguments The judge decided to:
1. Not allow Tesla to use the same arbitrator as they had before
2. She struck ALL confidentiality clauses for this case, and
3. She agreed that even they are claims that I should proceed in arbitration, They Are Critical criminal accusations like Spending the company  money without approval on my own personal created projects and recording conversations, That Will and Deserve to stay under her docket pending the finality of the arbitration!  
4. She requested that both parties will have to sent her an update every 180 days of how the arbitration is progressing

I need your help to allow me to fight for my right of a Fair Justice System in Federal Court, not in arbitration where I was punished for rolling my eyes and explosively cross my hands, even if I won. 


I want to go even further then just my case, and show the Congress with a help of a senator, what level of corruption is hidden behind the close doors of arbitration if you are the cult company like Tesla.

I truly believe in what FAIR Act is doing behind the scenes and hope my case and my story will help them.


Thank you for your time and help,
Cristina Balan.


If you would like to know more of story please check my blog. I will update it with all the evidence, emails and court documents as they become available. 

http://cristinaibalanstory.com