A Florida judge has ruled that Tesla and its executives, including CEO Elon Musk, knew that its vehicles were equipped with defective Autopilot systems. It found there was “reasonable evidence” to conclude that the vehicle had been allowed to operate in an area that was “unsafe for the technology”.
Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Reed Scott handed down the decision last week in a lawsuit filed by the family of a man who died in a crash while his Tesla was on Autopilot, alleging willful misconduct and gross misconduct. This means Tesla can seek punitive damages. procrastination. Reuters first reported the news.
The blow to Tesla comes after the electric car maker won two product liability lawsuits in California earlier this year over the safety of its Autopilot system. Autopilot is Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance system that can perform self-driving tasks such as navigating up and down highway ramps, controlling cruise control, changing lanes, and automatically parking.
The Florida lawsuit stems from a 2019 crash north of Miami. Owner Steven Banner’s Model 3 was crushed under the trailer of an 18-wheeler truck that had rolled onto the road, cutting off the roof of the Tesla and killing Banner. The trial, scheduled for October, was postponed and has not yet been postponed.
If the case goes to trial, it could reveal new information about the reams of data collected by Tesla, typically confidential information.
Judge Scott’s finding that Tesla’s top executives knew of the flaws could mean Musk will have to testify. According to the ruling, the judge found that Tesla’s marketing strategy portrayed the product as a self-driving car and that Musk’s public comments about Autopilot “significantly influenced his beliefs about the product’s capabilities.” said. The judge pointed to a misleading 2016 video that appeared to be directed by Musk that purported to show Teslas being fully self-driving through the Autopilot system.
The billionaire entrepreneur was not required to appear at the deposition after the judge rejected Banners’ argument that Musk had “independent knowledge” of the issues in the case.
The judge compared Banner’s crash to a similar fatal crash involving Joshua Brown in 2016, when Autopilot failed to detect a passing truck and the vehicle crashed into the side of a tractor-trailer at high speed. The judge also based his decision on testimony from autopilot engineer Adam Gustafson and Dr. Mary “Missy” Cummings, director of George Mason University’s Center for Autonomous and Robotics.
Gustafson, who was the investigator in both the Banner and Brown crashes, testified that in both cases Autopilot was unable to detect the semi-tractor and stop the vehicle. Additionally, engineers testified that even though Tesla was aware of the problem, no changes were made to the cross-traffic detection warning system that took cross-traffic into account from the date of Brown’s crash until Banner’s crash.
In the ruling, the judge said that testimony from other Tesla engineers showed that Musk, who was “intimately involved” in Autopilot’s development, was “acutely aware” of the problem but failed to remedy it. He said that a reasonable conclusion had been drawn.
A Tesla spokesperson could not be reached for comment.
The automaker will likely argue, as Tesla has done in the past, that Banner’s accident was the result of human error. A National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the accident found evasion to be at fault. The investigation found that the truck driver failed to yield the right of way and Banner was negligent because he relied too much on Autopilot. However, the NTSB also found that Autopilot did not send any visual or audible warnings to the driver to put his hands back on the steering wheel. bloomberg.
Tesla’s lawyers may rely on precedent set in two previous lawsuits this year that Tesla won.
Tesla secured a victory in April after a California jury found the company not liable for a 2019 crash involving Autopilot. Plaintiff Justin Su sued Tesla in 2020 for fraud, negligence and breach of contract, but was not awarded damages.
A few weeks ago, a jury sided with Tesla over allegations that Autopilot led to the death of Tesla driver Mika Lee in 2019. The two plaintiffs, survivors of the accident, claimed that Tesla knew its products were defective and sought $400 million in damages. Tesla claimed the accident was the result of human error.
The case — No. 50-2019-CA-009962 — is being heard in the Circuit Court of Palm Beach County, Florida.
