CORRECTED-Jury finds Tesla 1% negligent in fatal Model S crash
A Florida jury found Tesla Inc 1% negligent in the death of an 18-year-old man whose Model S sedan slammed into a concrete wall, with the teenager and his father 99% at fault. Monday's verdict by a Fort Lauderdale federal jury came in what lawyers for the teenager's parents James and Jenny...
Tesla Crash Victim Was 99% to Blame for His Death, Jury Says
A jury found Tesla Inc. just 1% responsible for the death of a teenager who crashed a Model S into a wall at high speed, concluding that the 18-year-old and his father were 99% to blame for the 2018 accident.
www.bloomberg.com
Jury finds Tesla 1% negligent in fatal Model S crash
Jonathan Stempel | Posted: a day ago | Updated: 20 hours ago | 2 Min Read
By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) -A Florida jury found electric car maker Tesla Inc 1% negligent in the death of an 18-year-old man whose Model S sedan slammed into a concrete wall after the car's speed limiter had been deactivated, with the teenager and his father found to be 99% at fault.
Monday's verdict by a Fort Lauderdale federal jury came in what lawyers for James and Jenny Riley, whose son Barrett died in the crash, called the first trial against Tesla over an accident involving its vehicles.
Barrett Riley had been driving at 116 miles per hour (187 kph), on a curve with a posted 25 mph speed limit, on May 8, 2018, when he lost control of his 2014 Model S while trying to pass another vehicle, causing a fire. The vehicle crashed into the concrete wall of a Fort Lauderdale home.
Another passenger also died while a third occupant survived.
Riley's parents said the crash occurred after a Tesla technician, without their knowledge, disabled a device that had been installed at their request and which capped the Model S's speed at 85 mph (137 kph).
Jurors found Tesla negligent for deactivating a "speed limiter" that the parents had installed to keep their son Barrett from driving too fast.
Lawyers for Barrett’s father, James Riley, had argued Tesla should have gotten his authorization -- as the car’s owner -- to remove the speed limiter, which was activated shortly after the teen got a ticket for going 112 mph in a 50 mph zone. The limiter was programmed to prevent the Model S from going faster than 85 mph.
Tesla’s attorneys argued that Barrett got Tesla staff to remove the limiter by when he returned to the service center after the car was worked on. Testimony by Barrett’s friends showed that the teen went there to “trick” a Tesla technician into deactivating the limiter and bragged to his buddies about it, Bob Rudock, an attorney for Tesla, said at closing arguments.
“A driver makes the car safe, the speed limiter does not,” Rudock told jurors.
James Riley testified that he’d been one of Tesla’s earliest Model S customers in 2010 and had remained loyal the company, buying several more Teslas over the years for his family with seven children. He also said Barrett was a big fan of Musk’s and planned to attend Purdue University starting in the fall of 2018 in hopes of eventually landing an engineering internship with Tesla.
The father recalled for jurors that he spoke to Elon Musk on the phone days after the Tesla chief executive officer first emailed him, unexpectedly, in the aftermath of the crash. Riley said the billionaire admitted on the call that it was a mistake for Tesla to remove the limiter without his permission. Tesla’s lawyers denied that’s how the conversation went and Musk didn’t testify at the trial.
What Musk said on the call was the “clincher,” Curtis Miner, an attorney for Riley, told jurors at closing arguments, as he urged them to find that Tesla “bears the most substantial fault.”
Riley’s communication with Musk led Tesla to put out 2018 software update for the limiter feature to let drivers set a maximum speed between 50 mph and 90 mph. Language was added to the owner’s manual saying the feature was overhauled in memory of Barrett Riley
The jury found Tesla 1% negligent, Barrett Riley 90% negligent, James Riley 9% negligent and Jenny Riley not negligent in Barrett Riley's death.
The jury said James and Jenny Riley suffered a respective $4.5 million and $6 million of damages for pain and suffering, which the judge can reduce based on the negligence findings.
Tesla, headed by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, had said that Barrett Riley's recklessness caused the crash and his parents should have taken away the keys after his March 2018 speeding ticket for driving at 112 mph (180 kph).
The parents said a design defect in Tesla's lithium-ion battery cells and battery pack contributed to the fire, but a judge on June 29 dismissed that claim.
Tesla has faced a variety of lawsuits and regulatory probes over crashes tied to its Autopilot feature. That feature was not at issue in Barrett Riley's crash, court records show.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Howard Goller and Leslie Adler)
