— Tesla is still stuck with a $243 million jury verdict after a Florida judge ruled there will be no new trial.
The Key Largo, Florida, Tesla Model S crash occurred in April 2019 when driver George McGee was speeding through an intersection and slammed into a parked Chevrolet Tahoe.
The Chevy then struck Naibel Benavides Leon and her boyfriend Dillon Angulo, killing 22-year-old Benavides Leon and causing serious injuries to Angulo. The couple had been 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 split between the plaintiffs.
Punitive damages are awarded to punish a company for wrongdoing.
Although Tesla Model S driver George McGee 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 was looking down,” and “I dropped my phone. Oh my God.”
He told officers, “I was driving. I dropped my phone and looked down and I ran the stop sign and hit the guy’s car.” McGee told officers, “[i]t was actually because I was driving [ ]. I looked down and I’ve been using cruise control, and I looked down, I didn’t realize (INAUDIBLE) and then I [ ] sat up. The minute I sat up[,] I hit the brakes and saw his truck.”
McGee also told the police, the “signs were visible if he had looked up” and “that, had he been watching the road, [he would have] had a clear and unobstructed view of the ‘T’ intersection for a ‘long distance’—at least 1,000 feet.” According to McGee, “there was nothing that prevented him from acting to prevent the crash.”
McGee also told the officers he “was driving on cruise going for – and [he] looked down [ ] – to get the phone [he] dropped … [then he] reached down . . . And then when [he] popped up and looked, [he] saw a black truck. It just happened so fast.”
The Tesla driver also admitted 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) should not be used on winding roads with sharp curves, on icy or slippery road surfaces[.]”
But the judge still blamed Tesla by ruling the Model S driver maybe didn't know 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 Model S driver might have had trouble reading those warnings.
But the judge went further by ruling the owner's manual warnings about Autopilot weren't really warnings but were more like "instructions."
Tesla argued the $243 million jury verdict violated basic common sense, but as seen in other cases, using that argument typically fails because many times common sense has nothing to do with the legal system or jury verdicts.
Tesla says the only reason the crash occurred is because Model S driver George McGee was reckless by blowing through an intersection at 62 mph while bending down to find his cell phone. Tesla also argues Autopilot had nothing to do with the crash because the Model S driver pressed the accelerator pedal which overrode Autopilot.
Tesla further argues no automaker should insure the world against harms caused by reckless drivers such as McGee.
The automaker also complained how the judge allowed the plaintiffs to include stories of other crashes that had nothing to do with this specific crash or lawsuit. Additionally, Tesla argued the judge should not have allowed punitive damages because Tesla did not show a “reckless disregard for human life” simply because a reckless driver crashed.
Considering it was Judge Bloom who allowed the lawsuit to proceed through the courts for the past four years, it's not a surprise she found no problems with the trial or jury verdict.
According to Judge Bloom, Tesla brought 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 / Naibel Benavides Leon lawsuit was originally filed April 22, 2021, in the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Florida, but later removed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Case No. 21-cv-21940-BLOOM/Torres.
The case is Neima Benavides, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Naibel Benavides Leon, deceased, v. Tesla, Inc., a/k/a. Tesla Florida, Inc.
