US jury: Tesla partly to blame for fatal accident with Autopilot

Tesla is to pay damages totaling several hundred million US dollars for a fatal accident that occurred in 2019. A jury has ordered the Californian e-car manufacturer to pay this in a groundbreaking trial in the US Federal Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami. It is the first time that a jury has held Elon Musk's company jointly liable for wrongful death in connection with the controversial Autopilot driver assistance system. All previous cases were dismissed by the courts or both sides reached out-of-court settlements.

In the accident in Key Largo, a Tesla Model S with the Autopilot system activated crashed into a stationary vehicle , according to reports. The car ran a stop sign at 100 kilometers per hour and hit two people who were looking at the stars on the side of the road next to their parked car on the shoulder. One victim died in the crash, the second suffered serious head injuries.

The Tesla driver stated that he had relied on the autopilot to compensate for any errors or inattentiveness on his part. His cell phone slipped out of his hand while he was driving at full speed. He therefore looked down to the ground to pick up the cell phone. Tesla and its CEO Musk have repeatedly promoted the corresponding perception of the assistance system. According to incriminating material in another court case, the CEO personally orchestrated an advertising video from 2016 in which the company exaggerated or misrepresented Autopilot's capabilities and spoke of autonomous driving. Tesla, on the other hand, argued that the driver bore sole responsibility.

Tesla liable for one third

The jury now decided on Friday that the blame should be shared: According to them, the driver is two-thirds (67 percent) responsible. However, as he was not charged, he does not have to pay his share.

According to the decision, Tesla is 33 percent liable. The jury awarded the family of the deceased woman and the seriously injured friend 129 million US dollars in damages, of which the car manufacturer should pay its one-third share. In addition, they determined so-called punitive damages in the amount of 200 million US dollars, which Tesla alone would have to pay. According to Anglo-American law, such an addition can be awarded to a plaintiff in civil proceedings over and above the actual damages suffered. The surviving dependants and the injured partner of the deceased had demanded 345 million US dollars in compensation.

Tesla intends to appeal

The jury found that Tesla had sold a car with a "defect" that contributed to the accident. The plaintiffs' lawyer emphasized that the company had only designed Autopilot for highway-like roads. Nevertheless, it does not prevent the system from being used in other areas of traffic that require more attention. Musk had also claimed that Autopilot was better than human drivers, which raised false hopes. The CEO had "propped up the company's trillion-dollar value with hype about autonomous driving at the expense of human lives".

A Tesla spokesperson described the jury verdict as "riddled with significant legal errors" and announced that it would appeal. According to the company, the driver alone is to blame, as he was driving too fast, accelerated and thus deactivated the autopilot and looked for his dropped phone instead of paying attention to the traffic. The assistance system was not the cause of the accident. No car in 2019 and none today would have prevented this accident. The decision also jeopardized the development of new safety technologies.

(nen)