Jury orders Tesla to pay more than $240 million in Autopilot crash case

By BERNARD CONDON and DAVID FISCHER Associated Press MIAMI AP A Miami jury decided that Elon Musk s car company Tesla was partly responsible for a deadly crash in Florida involving its Autopilot driver assist innovation and must pay the casualties more than million in damages The federal jury held that Tesla bore vital responsibility because its hardware failed and that not all the blame can be put on a reckless driver even one who admitted he was distracted by his cellphone before hitting a young couple out gazing at the stars The decision comes as Musk seeks to convince Americans his cars are safe enough to drive on their own as he plans to roll out a driverless taxi institution in several cities in the coming months The decision ends a four-year long development remarkable not just in its outcome but that it even made it to trial A multitude of similar cases against Tesla have been dismissed and when that didn t happen settled by the company to avoid the spotlight of a trial This will open the floodgates declared Miguel Custodio a car crash lawyer not involved in the Tesla matter It will embolden a lot of people to come to court Related Articles Manhunt launched after killed in a shooting at a Montana bar NFL on the verge of selling media assets to ESPN for an equity stake in the grid AP sources say Corporation for Populace Broadcasting to shut down after being defunded by Congress targeted by Trump Jeffrey Epstein s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is transferred to a prison camp in Texas Trump orders US nuclear subs repositioned over statements from ex-Russian leader Medvedev The event also included startling charges by lawyers for the family of the deceased -year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and for her injured boyfriend Dillon Angulo They claimed Tesla either hid or lost key evidence including material and video recorded seconds before the accident Tesla announced it made a mistake after being shown the evidence and honestly hadn t thought it was there We definitively learned what happened that night that the car was certainly defective explained Benavides sister Neima Benavides Justice was achieved Tesla has previously faced criticism that it is slow to cough up crucial information by relatives of other casualties in Tesla crashes accusations that the car company has denied In this occurrence the plaintiffs demonstrated Tesla had the evidence all along despite its repeated denials by hiring a forensic statistics expert who dug it up In the present day s verdict is wrong Tesla announced in a message and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla s and the entire industry s efforts to develop and implement lifesaving apparatus They explained the plaintiffs concocted a story blaming the car when the driver from day one admitted and accepted responsibility In addition to a punitive award of million the jury noted Tesla must also pay million of a total million in compensatory damages for the crash bringing the total borne by the company to million It s a big number that will send shock waves to others in the industry noted financial analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities It s not a good day for Tesla Tesla declared it will appeal Even if that fails the company says it will end up paying far less than what the jury decided because of a pre-trial agreement that limits punitive damages to three times Tesla s compensatory damages Translation million not million But the plaintiff says their deal was based on a multiple of all compensatory damages not just Tesla s and the figure the jury awarded is the one the company will have to pay It s not clear how much of a hit to Tesla s reputation for safety the verdict in the Miami circumstance will make Tesla has vastly improved its tool since the crash on a dark rural road in Key Largo Florida in But the issue of trust generally in the company came up several times in the circumstance including in closing arguments Thursday The plaintiffs lead lawyer Brett Schreiber stated Tesla s decision to even use the term Autopilot demonstrated it was willing to mislead people and take big risks with their lives because the system only helps drivers with lane changes slowing a car and other tasks falling far short of driving the car itself Schreiber reported other automakers use terms like driver assist and copilot to make sure drivers don t rely too much on the mechanism Words matter Schreiber commented And if someone is playing fast and lose with words they re playing fast and lose with information and facts Schreiber acknowledged that the driver George McGee was negligent when he blew through flashing lights a stop sign and a T-intersection at miles an hour before slamming into a Chevrolet Tahoe that the couple had parked to get a look at the stars The Tahoe spun around so hard it was able to launch Benavides feet through the air into nearby woods where her body was later ascertained It also left Angulo who walked into the courtroom Friday with a limp and cushion to sit on with broken bones and a traumatic brain injury But Schreiber disclosed Tesla was at fault nonetheless He announced Tesla allowed drivers to act recklessly by not disengaging the Autopilot as soon as they begin to show signs of distraction and by allowing them to use the system on smaller roads that it was not designed for like the one McGee was driving on I trusted the apparatus too much stated McGee at one point in his testimony I supposed that if the car saw something in front of it it would provide a warning and apply the brakes The lead defense lawyer in the Miami development Joel Smith countered that Tesla warns drivers that they must keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel yet McGee chose not to do that while he looked for a dropped cellphone adding to the danger by speeding Noting that McGee had gone through the same intersection or times previously and hadn t crashed during any of those trips Smith mentioned that isolated the cause to one thing alone The cause is that he dropped his cellphone The auto industry has been watching the episode closely because a finding of Tesla liability despite a driver s admission of reckless behavior would pose essential legal risks for every company as they develop cars that increasingly drive themselves Condon published from New York