Tesla’s Bid to Arbitrate Race Bias Claims Gets 9th Cir. Test

A former Tesla Inc. employee will try to convince a federal appeals court that his racial discrimination lawsuit should be litigated in an open courtroom and not forced into private arbitration.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is set to hear oral argument April 16 to consider whether workers who bring race bias claims under a 150-year-old civil rights law are bound by mandatory arbitration agreements. A federal judge in San Francisco ruled in 2018 that DeWitt Lambert’s discrimination lawsuit against Tesla belongs in arbitration.

The debate over arbitration agreements in recent years has often focused on ...