– Tesla is still stuck with a $243 million jury verdict after a Florida judge ruled there will be no new trial.
The Tesla Model S crash in Key Largo, Florida occurred in April 2019 when driver George McGee drove through an intersection and crashed into a parked Chevrolet Tahoe.
The Chevy then struck Naibel Benavides Leon and her boyfriend Dillon Angulo, killing 22-year-old Benavides Leon and seriously injuring Angulo. The couple was standing near the Chevy Tahoe.
Jurors found Tesla 33% responsible for the crash. The $242,570,000 award consisted of $19,470,000 in compensatory damages awarded to the estate of Naibel Benavides, $23,100,000 in compensatory damages awarded to Dillon Angulo, and $200,000,000 in punitive damages, to be divided between the plaintiffs.
Damages are awarded to punish a company for misconduct.
Although Tesla Model S driver George McGee had previously settled with the plaintiffs and was not a defendant in the lawsuit, much of the information about the crash came from his statements to authorities.
McGee called 911 and told the operator, “Oh my God, I wasn’t looking,” “I don’t know what happened. I ended up missing the turn. I looked down,” and “I dropped my phone. Oh my God.”
He told officers, “I was driving. I dropped my phone and looked down, I ran the stop sign and hit the guy’s car.” McGee told the officers: “[i]It was actually because I was driving [ ]. I looked down and I was using cruise control, and I looked down, I didn’t realize it (INAUDIBLE) and then [ ] sat up. From the moment I sat up[,] I hit the brakes and saw his truck.”
McGee also told police that the “signs were visible if he had looked up” and “that if he had been paying attention to the road, [he would have] had a clear and unobstructed view of the ‘T’ intersection for a ‘long distance’ – at least 300 metres. According to McGee, “there was nothing to prevent him from taking action to prevent the crash.”
McGee also told officers that he was “driving on a cruise for – and [he] looked down [ ] – to pick up the phone [he] fallen… [then he] reached down. . . And when [he] came out and looked, [he] saw a black truck. It just happened so quickly.”
The Tesla driver also admitted that the Model S owner’s manual warns drivers that Autopilot “(1) is primarily intended for driving on dry, straight roads, such as highways and freeways; (2) should not be used on city streets; [and] (3) shall not be used on winding roads with sharp bends, on icy or slippery road surfaces[.]”
But the judge still blamed Tesla, ruling that the Model S driver may not have known that he shouldn’t have trusted Autopilot as much as he did. Judge Bloom also blamed Tesla because even though the warnings in the owner’s manual are clear, the driver of the Model S may have had difficulty reading those warnings.
But the judge went further, ruling that the warnings in the owner’s manual about the autopilot were not really warnings, but rather “instructions.”
Tesla argued that the $243 million jury verdict was against common sense, but as we have seen in other cases, using that argument usually fails because common sense often has nothing to do with the legal system or jury verdicts.
Tesla says the only reason the crash happened is because Model S driver George McGee was reckless by blowing through an intersection at 60 mph while bending down to look for his cell phone. Tesla also claims that Autopilot had nothing to do with the crash because the driver of the Model S pressed the accelerator, which overridden Autopilot.
Tesla further states that no automaker should insure the world against damage caused by reckless drivers like McGee.
The automaker also complained that the judge allowed the plaintiffs to include stories about other accidents unrelated to this specific accident or the lawsuit. Furthermore, Tesla argued that the judge should not have allowed damages because Tesla did not show “reckless disregard for human life” simply because a reckless driver crashed.
Considering that it was Judge Bloom who kept the case moving through the courts for the past four years, it’s no surprise that she encountered no problems with the trial or the jury’s verdict.
According to Judge Bloom, Tesla presented no new information that would justify overturning the $243 million verdict and there was nothing new to grant the automaker a new trial.
The Tesla v Naibel Benavides Leon lawsuit was originally filed on April 22, 2021 in the Circuit Court of Miami-Dade County, Florida, but was later transferred to the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Case No. 21-cv-21940-BLOOM/Torres.
The thing is Neima Benavides, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Naibel Benavides Leon, deceased, vs. Tesla, Inc., a/k/a. Tesla Florida, Inc.
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