Tesla Autopilot Accident Lawsuit Results in $329M Damage Award by Florida Jury

Jury found Tesla’s autopilot system to be a contributing factor in the accident, which resulted in the death of a 22-year-old Florida woman.

A Florida jury has awarded $329 million in damages to a man and the family of his deceased girlfriend, finding that Tesla’s Autopilot system was partially responsible for a fatal crash in the Florida Keys.

Dillon Angulo was seriously injured in an accident that killed his girlfriend, Naibel Benavides Leon, in April 2019. The crash occurred after the driver dropped his phone and accidentally pressed the accelerator, overriding the Autopilot system and slamming into a parked vehicle.

While Tesla equips its vehicles with features like automated steering, braking, and lane changes, the company emphasizes that Autopilot is not a self-driving system, and requires drivers to stay fully engaged at all times.

However, plaintiffs in this complaint, and others, argue that Tesla’s marketing creates a misleading impression of full autonomy. They claim the company has overstated the safety and capabilities of Autopilot, fostering driver overreliance and contributing to crashes that have caused serious injuries and deaths.

According to trial testimony, Dillon Angulo and Naibel Benavides Leon were standing behind their parked vehicle in a residential neighborhood in Key Largo when a Tesla Model S, driven by George McGee, slammed into the car. The impact sent Benavides 75 feet through the air, killing her instantly. Angulo suffered multiple broken bones, a traumatic brain injury and lasting psychological trauma.

McGee was commuting to work using the vehicle’s Autopilot feature when he dropped his cell phone and reached down to retrieve it. In doing so, he accidentally pressed the accelerator, which disabled the Autopilot system and propelled the vehicle through an intersection at more than 60 miles per hour.

Although McGee was not named as a defendant in the case, he testified during trial that he believed Autopilot would still apply the brakes if the vehicle encountered an obstacle, such as the parked car Angulo and Benavides were standing behind.

Tesla argued that McGee frequently used Autopilot along that same route during his commute, and claimed the crash would not have occurred if he had not manually overridden the system by pressing the accelerator.

The jury ultimately awarded $200 million in punitive damages and $129 million in compensatory damages. Tesla is expected to be responsible for the full punitive award.

For the compensatory damages, the jury found Tesla 33% at fault, which amounts to $42.6 million. The remaining 67% of the blame was assigned to McGee, but because he was not a party to the lawsuit, he is not responsible for paying his share. As a result, Tesla is expected to pay a total of approximately $242.5 million to Angulo and the family of Benavides.

The plaintiffs had initially sought $345 million in total damages.

Tesla Autopilot Accidents

Mounting concerns over the safety of Tesla’s Autopilot system have led to a wave of lawsuits and federal investigations in recent years, as the technology continues to be linked to a growing number of serious and sometimes fatal crashes.

In December 2024, the family of a California man filed a Tesla Autopilot wrongful death lawsuit over a fatal crash involving the vehicle’s self-driving software. In that case, it was reported that Genesis Giovanni Mendoza Martinez had been driving his Tesla Model S in Autopilot mode on Interstate 680 in California, when the vehicle collided with a parked fire truck blocking his lane, killing Martinez and seriously injuring his brother, Caleb Mendoza, who was riding as a passenger.

In addition to this kind of litigation, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a report in June 2023, announcing that Tesla Autopilot problems had been linked to more accidents than previously believed. The NHTSA report indicated that from 2019 through 2023, 736 Tesla autopilot accidents had occurred, which was approximately 300 more than were previously believed.

Prior to the NHTSA report, government regulators had initiated an investigation into Tesla Autopilot accidents, focusing primarily on crashes involving stopped emergency vehicles. According to the NHTSA investigation, most of the incidents occurred at night and all involved scene control measures, which could include first responder vehicle lights, flares, an illuminated arrow board or road cones that might disrupt the vehicles’ autopilot functionality.

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