{"id":238881,"date":"2026-04-20T13:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/238881\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T13:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:10:08","slug":"parents-take-tesla-to-trial-over-2018-south-florida-crash-that-killed-2-fort-lauderdale-teens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/238881\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents take Tesla to trial over 2018 South Florida crash that killed 2 Fort Lauderdale teens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Monday marks the start of a high-profile wrongful death trial against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/tag\/tesla\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tesla<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/tag\/south-florida\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">South Florida<\/a> stemming from a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/news\/pine-crest-school-students-killed-in-fiery-tesla-crash\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">2018 crash<\/a> that left two Fort Lauderdale high school students dead.<\/p>\n<p>The family of one of the victims, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/news\/parents-of-teen-killed-in-lauderdale-tesla-crash-file-lawsuit\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Edgar Monserrat Martinez<\/a>, filed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/news\/federal-appeals-court-backs-tesla-in-fatal-fort-lauderdale-crash\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">lawsuit against Tesla<\/a> after the fiery crash.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/news\/family-teen-driver-killed-fort-lauderdale-tesla-crash-files-suit-against-company\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Barrett Riley<\/a> were seniors at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale when Riley crashed into wall at a speed of 116 mph.<\/p>\n<p>The case centers around a Tesla technician&#8217;s decision to allegedly remove a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/news\/ntsb-preliminary-report-tesla-hit-speed-of-116-mph-before-lauderdale-crash-that-killed-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">device limiting the vehicle&#8217;s speed<\/a>, and whether that contributed to the fatal crash.<\/p>\n<p>This lawsuit is just the latest in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/miami-tesla-trial-florida-leon-wrongful-death\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">string of proceedings<\/a> testing how far Tesla&#8217;s liability extends when its vehicles and its decisions are at the center of a serious injury or death.<\/p>\n<p>This current trial comes after a lawsuit was filed by the parents of Martinez, who was killed in the May 8, 2018 crash in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/tag\/fort-lauderdale\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Fort Lauderdale<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Riley was behind the wheel of the 2014 Tesla Model S and was driving 116 mph in a 30-mph zone when he lost control on a curve and struck a concrete wall. The vehicle then caught fire.<\/p>\n<p>Both Riley and Martinez were killed.<\/p>\n<p>Riley&#8217;s parents had previously installed a speed limiting device at a Tesla service center to cap the vehicle&#8217;s speed at 85 mph after a prior speeding ticket.<\/p>\n<p>A Tesla technician then allegedly deactivated the speed-limiting device without the parents&#8217; consent when Riley brought the Tesla in for service a month before the crash.<\/p>\n<p>A judge has cleared the way for this trial after denying Tesla&#8217;s motions to exclude some expert testimony about the battery&#8217;s design.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monday marks the start of a high-profile wrongful death trial against Tesla in South Florida stemming from a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,2336,2337,249,251,250,833,807,3395],"class_list":["post-238881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-car-crash","tag-fatal-crash","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-lawsuit","tag-south-florida","tag-tesla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}