Tesla has faced a string of lawsuits over the last five years stemming from fatal crashes involving cars equipped with its Autopilot driver-assist system.
The automaker has settled some of the lawsuits and others have been dismissed, allowing the company to avoid any legal judgments about Autopilot’s safety and whether it is flawed.
But a new case that is set to begin in federal court in Miami on Monday is the first to go to a jury trial, representing a serious threat to Tesla, its self-driving technology and its reputation.
The suit stems from a 2019 crash of a Tesla Model S sedan driven at night on a two-lane road in South Florida, with the Autopilot engaged. When the driver dropped his cellphone and bent to look for it, the car crashed into a parked sport-utility vehicle, killing one pedestrian and injuring another.
The case, which is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, was filed by the family of Naibel Benavides, who was killed in the crash, and her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, who survived with grave injuries.
Documents in the case indicate that Tesla’s attorneys plan to argue that Autopilot was not fully in control of the car at the time of the crash and that the driver, George Brian McGee, was solely responsible. Data from the car shows he had his foot on the accelerator, pushing its speed to 62 miles per hour, above the posted limit of 45 m.p.h. Pressing the accelerator overrode the cruise control part of Autopilot, which is designed to brake for obstacles or other vehicles.
“The evidence clearly shows that this crash had nothing to do with Tesla’s Autopilot technology,” Tesla said in a statement to The New York Times. “Instead, like so many unfortunate accidents since cellphones were invented, this was caused by a distracted driver.”
Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, is not expected to testify at the trial, but his past statements are expected to become a focus of the plaintiffs’ case.
The plaintiffs are expected to argue, the court documents show, that Autopilot is supposed to ensure that drivers remain attentive but failed to do so in this case. They are likely to also focus on the car’s automatic emergency braking system, which is supposed to activate even if part of Autopilot is overridden.
The lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Todd Poses, declined to comment for this article.
Unlike most previous lawsuits, the plaintiffs in this case were able to obtain detailed video imagery stored in the car’s computer. It shows that the Autopilot system recognized the parked S.U.V., one pedestrian and the end of the roadway. The plaintiffs claim Autopilot should have activated the brakes and warned the driver of the car that a crash was imminent, according to an order issued on June 26 by the presiding judge, Beth Bloom. The order outlined what evidence and testimony she would allow to be presented in the trial.
The stakes in this case are higher than in previous suits. No other Autopilot case has gone to a jury, and Judge Bloom has ruled that the plaintiffs may seek punitive damages from Tesla.
“A reasonable jury could find that Tesla acted in reckless disregard of human life for the sake of developing their product and maximizing profit,” Judge Bloom wrote in an order issued on July 7.
The case comes at a critical time for Tesla. Its sales have been declining, partly because of a backlash against Mr. Musk’s involvement with right-wing politics and the Trump administration. If a verdict is reached that Autopilot is flawed and was at least partly responsible for the crash, that could hurt the company because much of its stock market value is based on its promises to develop self-driving vehicles.
A few weeks ago, Tesla began tests of self-driving taxis in Austin, Texas.
The crash occurred on the night of April 25, 2019, when Mr. McGee, a principal in a private equity firm, was driving to his home on Key Largo. With Autopilot engaged, he dropped his phone while on a call with American Airlines, as his Model S approached a T-intersection at the end of Card Sound Road.
Autopilot can steer, brake and accelerate automatically, although Tesla’s owners’ manuals tell drivers they should keep their hands on the steering wheel and eyes on the road. As Mr. McGee was searching for his dropped phone, the Autopilot system detected the end of the road and a black S.U.V. parked in a gravelly area just beyond the T-intersection, according to deposition testimony by Mary “Missy” Cummings, a George Mason University professor who is an expert on advanced driver-assistance systems. The plaintiffs are expected to call her to testify.
But Mr. McGee’s car continued and crashed into the S.U.V. Ms. Benavides, a 22-year-old college student who was standing outside the S.U.V., was killed. Her body was found about 75 feet away from the site of impact. Mr. Angulo, who was also standing outside the S.U.V., sustained a severe concussion, multiple broken bones and other serious injuries.
Mr. Musk has said on many occasions since Autopilot was rolled out in 2015 that the system is much safer than human drivers and has claimed that Tesla’s technology was close to being able to pilot cars with no driver. Tesla uses the name Full Self-Driving for an advanced version of Autopilot, although it still requires drivers to remain attentive.
The plaintiffs, according to documents filed in the case, plan to claim that Mr. Musk exaggerated Autopilot’s capabilities, causing some drivers to believe it was safe to stop paying attention while at the wheel.
Court documents indicate that the plaintiffs plan to use deposition testimony from an Autopilot engineer, David Shoemaker, as well as two other Tesla employees. Ms. Cummings, who has worked as a safety adviser at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is expected to testify that in her opinion Autopilot was defective because it failed to react to the obstacles it recognized ahead of Mr. McGee’s car, and failed to ensure that the driver was paying attention to the road, according to Judge Bloom’s June 26 order.
Transcripts of pretrial hearings and other court documents indicate that Tesla attorneys are likely to argue that Mr. McGee was to blame for the crash because he took his hands off the steering wheel and eyes off the road.
The plaintiffs previously sued Mr. McGee in a case that was ultimately settled. The terms have not been disclosed.
Neal E. Boudette is based in Michigan and has been covering the auto industry for two decades. He joined The New York Times in 2016 after more than 15 years at The Wall Street Journal.
The post Tesla Faces First Jury Trial Tied to Its Autopilot System appeared first on New York Times.
