On Aug. 1, a federal jury in Miami, FL, awarded $329 million — $129 million in compensatory and $200 million in punitive damages — to the estate of Naibel Benavides and Dillon Angulo, a portion of which Tesla will have to pay, after it was found partly liable for a 2019 Autopilot crash in Key Largo that killed Benavides and gravely injured Angulo.
The decision marks the first time a U.S. jury has imposed nine-figure penalties over the driver-assist system’s use outside highways.
The eight-member panel found that Tesla allowed its Enhanced Autopilot to be engaged on non-highway roads despite engineering it for controlled-access highways — behavior plaintiffs argued “turned our roads into test tracks,” according to attorney Brett Schreiber.
“Tesla designed Autopilot only for controlled-access highways yet deliberately chose not to restrict drivers from using it elsewhere,” Schreiber said in a statement.
Tesla called the verdict “wrong” and said it would appeal, warning the decision “jeopardizes … efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology,” the company said in a statement.
On April 25, 2019, Model S owner George McGee activated Enhanced Autopilot while driving through Key Largo. Distracted while retrieving a dropped phone, he expected the system to brake for obstacles, but the car accelerated to about 62 mph, plowing into a parked Chevrolet Tahoe and the couple standing beside it. Benavides, 22, died at the scene; Angulo suffered multiple fractures and a traumatic brain injury.
The $329 million award eclipses previous settlements Tesla reached before trial and could open the door for roughly a dozen similar U.S. lawsuits alleging Autopilot or Full Self-Driving contributed to fatal crashes. Axios noted the case is the first in which a jury assigned Tesla partial liability after trials in other states ended with zero damages for plaintiffs.
The verdict lands amid intensifying federal scrutiny. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched a formal defect investigation into Autopilot in 2021 after crashes with emergency vehicles and is separately probing whether Tesla’s 2023 over-the-air “recall remedy” actually fixed the problem.
Tesla shares fell 1.5% Aug. 1.
