By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – Tesla (NASDAQ) Inc asked a U.S. Court to confirm its victory in arbitration with a former engineer. She claimed that the automaker fired her and made fun of her concerns regarding defective floormats, contracting practices and other issues.

In a San Francisco Federal Court petition, Tesla said that an arbitrator rejected Cristina Balan’s claim in Nov. 3, 2017 that she was falsely accused by the company of criminal conduct. This decision came in light of a Huffington Post article in 2017 about Balan being fired.

A California appeals court found that Balan had to arbitrate defamation cases because they were related to her Tesla employment.

Thursday’s request by the company to the court for the confirmation of the arbitrator’s decision was made. Balan could then challenge the ruling.

Balan’s lawyer did not respond immediately to our request for comment.

Balan claimed in a 2019 lawsuit that she was fired soon after sending an email claiming contracts were being granted based solely on friendships, regardless of their quality or price.

Balan also expressed concern about the Model S’s floormats curling under Tesla’s pedals.

Tesla stated that she was fired because of using company time for a personal project, and recording calls with coworkers.

According to court filings and testimony, Tesla had already praised Balan for her work, even crediting her with creating a design to power a battery-pack.