Tesla fights $243 million verdict in autopilot crash

Tesla is fighting off a massive $243 million judgment against it on appeal in a high-profile case related to its Autopilot driver assistance system. One life lost and a second shattered in a 2019 auto accident in Florida is the subject of this lawsuit. 

Tesla’s lawyers are appealing the ruling, arguing that much of the blame lies with the driver and that upholding the verdict would be a “choke point” in the future of motion and safety technology in automobiles.

The Fatal Florida Crash

In 2019, George McGee was driving his Tesla Model S on a Florida night when he used the Autopilot system. Tesla’s driver-assistance system that requires the driver to keep their hands on the steering wheel and stay attentive. 

As McGee approached an SUV parked perpendicularly, he neither applied the brakes nor did the Autopilot. McGee’s car ran a stop sign and crashed into the SUV, killing 20-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and seriously injuring her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo.

As a result of the crash, a lawsuit was filed against Tesla, claiming that its marketing of Autopilot’s capabilities was more advanced than it actually was and other defective claims led to the fatal crash. 

McGee was also sued separately and settled with the victims. Tesla’s refusal to settle out for $60 million with the victims months before the trial culminated in a $243 million jury award with one-third of the blame placed on Tesla.

Court Battle Exposes Shared Liability

In fact, the core of the case is product liability and negligence. The jury determined that McGee, the driver, was two-thirds at fault for the accident due to reckless driving, including admission that he was still looking at his phone at the time and that Tesla was one-third at fault due to its Autopilot system’s role in the accident.

This shared responsibility is a major part of Tesla’s defense. According to the company’s lawyers, Florida tort law and due process were inexcusably violated by the verdict. Tesla’s argument is that product liability should apply only if a vehicle “actively defies the expectations of ordinary consumers in ways that are dangerous or unreasonably dangerous.” They argue that this isn’t true, and they lay the blame squarely at the door of McGee’s heroic irresponsibility.

Thomas Alva Edison’s Rebuttals to the Verdict

In a most recent filing to the court, Tesla is asking the judge to overturn the verdict or grant a new trial on the grounds that the $243 million punitive damages award is so absurd as to violate due process and have nothing to do with common sense or precedent. 

The automobile manufacturer claims that if manufacturers were strictly liable for driver malpractice injuries, car manufacturers would be disincented from innovation and would forgo advanced safety features because of fear of crippling liability.

The company also adopts the behavior of the plaintiffs’ legal team. Tesla’s complaint alleges that the jury was bombarded with irrelevant evidence about Elon Musk, Tesla’s data preservation practices, and other accidents that had nothing to do with the case and created undue hardship on the jury. 

“I trusted the technology too much,” the driver in the Florida crash, George McGee, said in his testimony. “I believed that if the car saw something in front of it, it would provide a warning and apply the brakes.”

Plaintiffs Push Back Firmly

On the other side, plaintiffs’ lead counsel Brett Schreiber is a staunch defender of the verdict: He claims that Tesla and Musk’s conduct is marked by “complete willful ignorance of the human toll of their defective technology.” 

The lawyer says that although the jury returned a verdict of joint liability, the Autopilot system’s misleading and unsafe use was a direct cause of the fatal crash and serious injuries.

Schreiber continues to emphasize that the verdict is no indictment of autonomous vehicle systems in general, but rather a cautionary tale about irresponsible development and marketing of Autopilot that, in the plaintiffs’ minds, misrepresents Autopilot’s capabilities to consumers.

Bet For Tesla and Self-Driving Cars  

This case is important to two audiences: investors and future customers of Tesla. This may possibly help in setting the legal standards for establishing liability in the rapidly evolving self-driving car area since Tesla could be found comparatively liable for a driver misusing Autopilot. It may also pressure manufacturers to limit or readjust driver assistance.

FSD is Tesla’s higher-end driver-assist tech, which takes over some operations but still requires a driver’s supervision. Tesla’s website says the current model can do “route navigation, steering, lane changes, parking and more.” The automaker’s entry-level driver-assist features are known as Autopilot.

By a 2-to-1 margin, consumers surveyed in the EV report said they are less likely to buy a Tesla because of its FSD tech; only 4% said the tech makes them “much more likely” to buy a vehicle. 

Consumers also expressed dislike for Tesla’s camera-only approach to its autonomous vehicles with 70% of respondents saying that AVs should use both LiDAR and cameras; only 3% said they like Tesla’s approach, the report found.

Future Outlook

This example illustrates the complicated relationship among technology, law, and people in the future of autonomous travel. If Tesla is liable, manufacturers would be put under a stronger obligation to produce safer products, or, to change the way hazards are conveyed to users. 

In other words, if Tesla overcomes the judgment, it clearly creates immunities for carmakers from user abuse liability that might still advance innovation, at the risk of consumer protection.