Tesla must pay the plaintiffs $200 million in punitive damages, the jury said.

A representative for Tesla sent Ars the following statement: “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 life-saving technology. We plan to appeal given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial. Even though this jury found that the driver was overwhelmingly responsible for this tragic accident in 2019, the evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator—which overrode Autopilot—as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road. To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash. 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.”

So, you admit that the company’s marketing has continued to lie for the past six years?

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    12 hours ago

    So, turns out Tesla really is going to try and get the verdict tossed by the judge due to trial and/or jury mistake rather than (or in addition) to an appeal.

    https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.593426/gov.uscourts.flsd.593426.568.0.pdf

    Tesla Is Entitled to Judgment as a Matter of Law (or at Least a New Trial) on Liability. For Tesla to be liable in any amount for this tragic accident, Plaintiffs were required to prove both that Tesla’s 2019 Model S was defective in some way and that the defective design or warnings caused McGee to blow through a stop sign and crash his car into an SUV that was parked well off the road when he was pushing the accelerator while fishing around for his phone. Lesnik v. Duval Ford, LLC, 185 So. 3d 577, 581 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2016). Plaintiffs’ liability case hinges on two experts whose testimony did not meet the standards established by Federal Rule of Evidence 702. Especially without their testimony, the record cannot sustain the verdict. But even with their testimony, Plaintiffs failed as a matter of law to establish that the 2019 Model S—which provided a carefully engineered system and offered extensive warnings on its breakthrough Autopilot system—was defective or caused the injuries that Plaintiffs suffered after McGee crashed into Benavides and Angulo. The Court should grant judgment as a matter of law in Tesla’s favor on liability or, at a minimum, a new trial.

    Edit: Also I was asking googles AI about differences between the term JMOL and what I saw and posted about earlier JNOV, and they’re apparently the same thing. One used to be for before the verdict, and one after, but now it’s just the same term. They’re basically saying the Jury got it wrong with or without the evidence.