Share This: A Florida jury has awarded the estate of a woman killed in an Autopilot-involved crash nearly $243 million, having found Tesla 33% responsible. Tesla was sued by the family of Naibel Benavides Leon, 22, who was killed in April 2019 after being struck by a 2019 Model S driven by George McGee. A similar suit filed by her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, for the injuries he sustained in the crash was later consolidated with the Leon case. A June 30 motion filed in court states that U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom dismissed claims of defective manufacture and negligent misrepresentation of Autopilot. She allowed claims of defective design and failure to warn to proceed to trial. A link to information about Autopilot on Tesla’s website no longer worked as of Monday afternoon. Repairer Driven News previously reported that the OEM’s website stated Autopilot doesn’t make its vehicles autonomous but “enables your car to steer, accelerate, and brake automatically within its lane. Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.” According to the Associated Press, McGee passed through flashing lights, a stop sign, and a T-intersection at 62 miles an hour, then slammed into a Chevrolet Tahoe that Benavides Leon and her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, were standing next to while stargazing. “The Tahoe spun around so hard it was able to launch Benavides 75 feet through the air into nearby woods, where her body was later found,” the AP article states. “It also left Angulo, who walked into the courtroom Friday with a limp and cushion to sit on, with broken bones and a traumatic brain injury.” The case proved that crash data and video existed, which Tesla denied having. AP reports that “Tesla said it made a mistake after being shown the evidence and honestly hadn’t thought it was there.” The plaintiffs’ lead attorney, Brett Schreiber, said Tesla’s decision to use the term “Autopilot” showed its willingness to mislead consumers and “take big risks with their lives because the system only helps drivers with lane changes, slowing a car, and other tasks — falling far short of driving the car itself,” the article states. Schreiber reportedly noted that other automakers use terms like “driver assist” and “copilot” to ensure drivers don’t overly rely on the technology. “Words matter,” Schreiber said, according to the AP. “And if someone is playing fast and loose with words, they’re playing fast and loose with information and facts.” In a statement to news organizations, Tesla said, “Today’s verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement lifesaving technology.” Tesla added that the plaintiffs “concocted a story ‘blaming the car when the driver – from day one – admitted and accepted responsibility,'” according to the AP. “I trusted the technology too much,” said McGee during his testimony, according to the AP. “I believed that if the car saw something in front of it, it would provide a warning and apply the brakes.” He reportedly testified that he was distracted by his cell phone at the time of the crash. While the jury determined McGee is 67% responsible for the crash, he wasn’t named as a defendant in the case and therefore won’t have to pay any of the damages. “To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash,” Tesla said in a statement, according to Reuters. “This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver — from day one — admitted and accepted responsibility.” Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor and autonomous technology pundit, told Reuters it’s a big deal that the jury found Tesla had a hand in the crash. “We have a driver who was acting less than perfectly, and yet the jury still found Tesla contributed to the crash,” he said. “The only way the jury could have possibly ruled against Tesla was by finding a defect with the Autopilot software. That’s a big deal.” A 2023 trial in California was the first time a U.S. jury determined whether the feature was responsible for a death. The jury sided with Tesla in a civil lawsuit that alleged the OEM’s Autopilot software was to blame for a fatal crash near Los Angeles. The lawsuit was filed by Lindsay Molander and her son Parker Austin, who were injured in 2019 when a Model 3 driven by Micah Lee crashed into a tree after veering off a highway. Lee was killed after the car crashed and exploded into flames. Two passengers were also seriously injured, including an 8-year-old boy. Tesla’s software has been the subject of numerous lawsuits, which allege false advertising and defective safety systems related to Autopilot and Full Self-Driving following injuries and deaths. The automaker has also faced scrutiny by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regarding the features. During a July court hearing, the California Department of Motor Vehicles argued that Tesla has falsely advertised its Full Self-Driving technology. The result could be a suspension of Tesla’s license to manufacture and sell vehicles in the state. Images