The San Francisco federal judge overseeing a case brought on behalf of Tesla Inc. factory workers who accuse the company of harboring a "Jim Crow era" work environment on the floor of its Fremont production plant all but conceded that there was no possibility of the case going to trial as scheduled in June.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick III of the Northern District of California, however, stopped short of vacating the June 8 trial date in the case during a hearing Monday morning, saying that he wanted to keep the trial on his calendar in the "one-tenth of 1%" chance that it might move forward as planned.

"I'm looking at my trial calendar, and it's just on to smithereens," said Orrick, who, like judges across the country, is facing an increasing backlog of cases that were prepared to go to trial while shelter-in-place orders were put into effect. Orrick said that he would inform the parties by the end of the week if they should prepare for a later Sept. 28 trial date. By the end of the hearing, the judge all but conceded that a June trial was unfeasible, and he was urging the lawyers to prepare for a trial that would look very different from the way things were before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Plant workers Demetric Diaz, Owen Diaz and Lamar Patterson sued Tesla and staffing agencies in December 2018 claiming that racial slurs and racist graffiti were a regular part of their workplace. California Civil Rights Law Group's Larry Organ, who represents the plaintiffs, said that he hoped that whenever trial resumes that his clients wouldn't have to wear masks in front of jurors.

Orrick, however, hesitated at that suggestion. "I think there's going to be a lot that's different," Orrick said. "We'll just have to wait and see how that all plays out."

Orrick told the lawyers to prepare for a more complex jury selection that might require more prescreening of jurors than typical. He also said that trial staging might be different, with lawyers questioning witnesses from their respective tables rather than from a podium.

"How exactly things get staged, I think will be part of the brave new world," Orrick said.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick III of the Northern District of California (Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM) U.S. District Judge William Orrick III of the Northern District of California. Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton's Tracey Kennedy, representing Tesla, said that she and her team were "still holding out hope" that there would be a way to move forward. "That hope is fleeting," she added.

Orrick added that he would be willing to follow the will of the parties if they determined there was no way to safely move forward and he urged them to continue their settlement talks before U.S. District Magistrate Judge Robert Illman of the Northern District of California.

"If we're going to go on June 8 and you say we can't possibly get people there because of this pandemic emergency, that will be one occasion where I will defer to you because we're not going to put anybody at risk," Orrick said. "That's just not how we're going to go about things."

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