Tesla Found Partially Liable in Florida Autopilot Case, Jury Awards $200 Million in Damages

A federal jury in Miami has ruled that Tesla is partially liable for a fatal crash in 2019 involving the company’s Autopilot driver assistance system.

As reported by CNBC, the jury awarded punitive damages exclusively against Tesla, with the total liabilities, including compensatory damages, amounting to approximately $242.5 million.

The incident occurred when neither the driver nor the Autopilot system managed to stop in time at an intersection, leading to a collision with an SUV that resulted in the death of a pedestrian. The jury determined that two-thirds of the fault lay with the driver and one-third with Tesla. (The driver is currently facing a separate lawsuit.)

This verdict wraps up a three-week trial concerning the tragic death of 20-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and serious injuries to her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. This case marks one of the first significant legal decisions against Tesla regarding driver assistance technologies, following the company’s previous settlements in similar Autopilot-related lawsuits.

Brett Schreiber, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, told TechCrunch that Tesla intentionally designed Autopilot “only for controlled-access highways but chose not to limit its use elsewhere, even with Elon Musk asserting that Autopilot outperforms human drivers.”

“Tesla’s misrepresentations have transformed our roads into testing grounds for their flawed technology, jeopardizing the safety of innocent individuals like Naibel Benavides and Dillon Angulo,” Schreiber stated. “Today’s ruling represents justice for Naibel’s heartbreaking death and Dillon’s life-changing injuries, holding Tesla and Musk accountable for inflating the company’s trillion-dollar valuation at the expense of human lives.”

In a statement to TechCrunch, Tesla expressed its intent to appeal the verdict “due to significant legal errors and irregularities during the trial.”

“Today’s decision is erroneous and undermines automotive safety, jeopardizing the advancements Tesla and the entire industry have made in developing life-saving technologies,” the company said. “To clarify, no vehicle in 2019—or today—could have avoided this incident. This was never about Autopilot; it was manufactured by the plaintiffs’ attorneys shifting blame onto the vehicle while the driver has continually acknowledged and accepted responsibility.”

Tesla and Musk have spent years advocating for Autopilot’s features, fostering overconfidence in the driver assistance system—a reality that has caught the attention of government officials and Musk himself over time.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reached a similar conclusion in 2020 following an investigation into a 2018 crash that claimed the life of driver Walter Huang, who was playing a mobile game while utilizing Autopilot. After their inquiry, the NTSB made several recommendations that Tesla largely ignored according to later statements from the safety board.

During a conference call in 2018, Musk expressed concerns over “complacency” regarding driver assistance systems such as Autopilot.

“People become too comfortable with it. That tends to be a more significant issue. It’s not about misunderstanding Autopilot’s capabilities; it’s [drivers] thinking they have a better grasp of Autopilot than they truly do,” Musk remarked at the time.

The trial took place as Tesla is in the process of unveiling the first versions of its highly anticipated Robotaxi network, starting in Austin, Texas. These vehicles will employ an upgraded version of Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system, referred to as Full Self-Driving.

Update: This story has been updated to include the total amount of compensatory damages.