MIAMI (AP) \u2014 A Miami jury decided that Elon Musk\u2019s car company Tesla was partly responsible for a deadly crash in Florida involving its Autopilot driver assist technology and must pay the victims more than $240 million in damages. <\/p>\n
The federal jury held that Tesla bore significant responsibility because its technology 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 service in several cities in the coming months. <\/p>\n
The decision ends a four-year long case remarkable not just in its outcome but that it even made it to trial. Many similar cases against Tesla have been dismissed and, when that didn\u2019t happen, settled by the company to avoid the spotlight of a trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will open the floodgates,\u201d said Miguel Custodio, a car crash lawyer not involved in the Tesla case. \u201cIt will embolden a lot of people to come to court.\u201d<\/p>\n
The case also included startling charges by lawyers for the family of the deceased, 22-year-old, Naibel Benavides Leon, and for her injured boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. They claimed Tesla either hid or lost key evidence, including data and video recorded seconds before the accident. Tesla said it made a mistake after being shown the evidence and honestly hadn\u2019t thought it was there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe finally learned what happened that night, that the car was actually defective,\u201d said Benavides\u2019 sister, Neima Benavides. \u201cJustice was achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tesla has previously faced criticism that it is slow to cough up crucial data by relatives of other victims in Tesla crashes, accusations that the car company has denied. In this case, the plaintiffs showed Tesla had the evidence all along, despite its repeated denials, by hiring a forensic data expert who dug it up. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s verdict is wrong,\u201d Tesla said in a statement, \u201cand only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla\u2019s and the entire industry\u2019s efforts to develop and implement lifesaving technology,\u201d They said the plaintiffs concocted a story \u201dblaming the car when the driver \u2013 from day one \u2013 admitted and accepted responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to a punitive award of $200 million, the jury said Tesla must also pay $43 million of a total $129 million in compensatory damages for the crash, bringing the total borne by the company to $243 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big number that will send shock waves to others in the industry,\u201d said financial analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities. \u201cIt\u2019s not a good day for Tesla.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tesla said it will appeal. <\/p>\n
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\u2019s compensatory damages. Translation: $172 million, not $243 million. But the plaintiff says their deal was based on a multiple of all compensatory damages, not just Tesla\u2019s, and the figure the jury awarded is the one the company will have to pay. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear how much of a hit to Tesla\u2019s reputation for safety the verdict in the Miami case will make. Tesla has vastly improved its technology since the crash on a dark, rural road in Key Largo, Florida, in 2019.<\/p>\n
But the issue of trust generally in the company came up several times in the case, including in closing arguments Thursday. The plaintiffs\u2019 lead lawyer, Brett Schreiber, said Tesla\u2019s decision to even use the term Autopilot showed 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.<\/p>\n
Schreiber said other automakers use terms like \u201cdriver assist\u201d and \u201ccopilot\u201d to make sure drivers don\u2019t rely too much on the technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cWords matter,\u201d Schreiber said. \u201cAnd if someone is playing fast and lose with words, they\u2019re playing fast and lose with information and facts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schreiber acknowledged that the driver, George McGee, was negligent when he blew through flashing lights, a stop sign and a T-intersection at 62 miles an hour before slamming into a Chevrolet Tahoe that the couple had parked to get a look at the stars.<\/p>\n
The Tahoe spun around so hard it was able to launch Benavides 75 feet through the air into nearby woods where her body was later found. 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.<\/p>\n
But Schreiber said Tesla was at fault nonetheless. He said 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI trusted the technology too much,\u201d said McGee at one point in his testimony. \u201cI believed that if the car saw something in front of it, it would provide a warning and apply the brakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lead defense lawyer in the Miami case, 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 30 or 40 times previously and hadn\u2019t crashed during any of those trips, Smith said that isolated the cause to one thing alone: \u201cThe cause is that he dropped his cellphone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The auto industry has been watching the case closely because a finding of Tesla liability despite a driver\u2019s admission of reckless behavior would pose significant legal risks for every company as they develop cars that increasingly drive themselves. <\/p>\n
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Condon reported from New York.<\/p>\n
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Earlier versions of this story incorrectly reported that the jury ordered Tesla to pay $329 million and that the compensatory damages totaled $49 million. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (AP) \u2014 A Miami jury decided that Elon Musk\u2019s car company Tesla was partly responsible for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1686,106,1308,40904,28,29944,10709,11,2822,2808,793,10706,40902,18320,2821,40905,40901,40903,1022,10705,1059,795],"class_list":{"0":"post-53653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-accidents","9":"tag-auto-industry","10":"tag-automotive-accidents","11":"tag-brett-schreiber","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-dan-ives","14":"tag-dillon-angulo","15":"tag-elon-musk","16":"tag-fl-state-wire","17":"tag-florida","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-george-mcgee","20":"tag-joel-smith","21":"tag-juries","22":"tag-miami","23":"tag-miguel-custodio","24":"tag-neima-benavides","25":"tag-self-driving-cars","26":"tag-texas","27":"tag-transportation-technology","28":"tag-tx-state-wire","29":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}