Tesla Goes to Trial Over Fatal Autopilot Crash in Florida
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Tesla Inc. will stand trial over claims that the company is partly to blame for a fatal 2019 crash in Florida that occurred when the Autopilot system in a Model S allegedly failed to detect a parked SUV.
Family members of the woman killed in the crash, Tesla engineers and auto safety experts are expected to provide testimony in a federal courtroom in Miami during the jury trial, which starts July 14 and is set to last three weeks.
Only a handful of Tesla crash cases have gone to trial. The electric vehicle maker has struck confidential accords to resolve several cases that blamed defective technology for deadly accidents.
Musk is under enormous investor pressure after the company’s stock has been battered, first by his close affiliation with President Donald Trump, and then by his dramatic falling out with the president. Musk has staked Tesla’s future in part on autonomous driving as the company makes a big push to launch a robotaxi business.
In the Miami case, like others before it, Tesla has pinned its defense on “driver error.” The driver of the Tesla S had engaged the driver-assistance system, but had dropped his mobile phone and wasn’t watching the road while reaching for the device on the floorboard. That’s when the car went through a T intersection in Key Largo and off the pavement, striking a parked Chevrolet Tahoe whose two occupants were standing outside the vehicle.
Naibel Benavides Leon, 20, was killed in the collision. Her estate sued Tesla, as did Dillon Angulo, who was injured. The lawsuit seeks compensation for medical expenses, wrongful death and pain and suffering, as well as punitive damages for what plaintiffs claim was Tesla’s “reckless disregard for human life.”
“The evidence clearly shows that this crash had nothing to do with Tesla’s Autopilot technology,’’ Tesla said in a statement. ``Instead, like so many unfortunate accidents since cellphones were invented, this was caused by a distracted driver. To his credit, he took responsibility for his actions because he was searching for his dropped cellphone while also pressing the accelerator, speeding and overriding the car’s system at the time of the crash. In 2019 when this occurred, no crash avoidance technology existed that could have prevented this tragic accident.”
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At issue is whether alleged design defects with Tesla’s Autopilot system resulted in a failure to detect and respond to obstacles in the vehicle’s path, including the end of the roadway. The lawsuit also argues that Tesla failed to provide adequate warning about the dangers of using Autopilot.
Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a consumer advocacy group, said the case would be the first to test these legal theories of liability against Tesla.
“This case has the potential to set a marker in the sand about just how far juries are willing to go one way or the other,” Brooks said in an interview. “The interesting part of this case will be seeing how much blame the jury places on the driver, but also how much blame they want to place on Tesla.”
In June, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom dismissed claims of defective manufacturing and negligent misrepresentation. The lawsuit had argued that Tesla falsely advertised its Autopilot capabilities beyond what the vehicle actually possessed. Bloom sided with Tesla and said there was no basis for such a claim.
George McGee, the driver of the Tesla, is expected to testify at trial. In court filings, attorneys for the plaintiffs argue he was overly reliant on his vehicle’s Autopilot system because Tesla fails to adequately inform drivers about its limitations.
Jurors are also slated to hear expert testimony from Mary “Missy” Cummings, a George Mason University professor who has been critical of Tesla’s automated-driving systems. When she was appointed to serve as senior safety adviser at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2021, Musk called her “extremely biased against Tesla,” and Tesla fans signed a petition against her.
Cummings has served as an expert witness in at least two other lawsuits against Tesla related to the Autopilot system, according to court filings.
The automaker won two previous trials in California after juries found that accidents blamed on Autopilot — one fatal and one not — were due to driver error rather than the company’s technology. In 2022, the company was found just 1% responsible for the death of an 18-year-old whose Model S slammed into a concrete wall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., while he was speeding. The jury said the teen and his father were 99% at fault for the crash.
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The company’s near-perfect record in court carries the risk that any adverse verdict could be seen as undermining Musk’s oft-repeated claim that his electric vehicles are the safest ever made.
Tesla faces three more trials over fatal Autopilot crashes in the next nine months in California. It’s also scheduled to go to trial in Houston over a case brought on behalf of five police officers badly injured on the side of a freeway when a Tesla on Autopilot plowed into a parked squad car at 70 mph.
The case is Benavides v. Tesla, 1:21-cv-21940, US District Court, Southern District of Florida (Miami).
