Miami jury orders Tesla to pay more than $240 million in Autopilot crash case to Florida family

Miami – A jury in Miami decided that Elon Musk Cars Company is partially responsible for a fatal collision in Florida, including the Autopilot driver assistance technology and must pay victims to more than 240 million dollars as compensation.

The Federal jury saw that Tesla took great responsibility because its technology failed and that it could not be blamed for a reckless driver, even the person who admitted that he was distorting his attention from his mobile phone before he hit a young couple coming out in the stars. The decision comes at a time when Musk is to persuade the Americans that his cars are safe enough to drive on their own because he plans to offer taxi service without a driver in several cities in the coming months.

The decision ends from a long four -year case, not only in its results, but even it has reached the trial. Several similar cases were rejected against Tesla, and when this did not happen, the company settled by the company to avoid the spotlight from the trial.

“This will open the flood gates,” said Miguel Costio, a car crashing lawyer who does not participate in the Tesla case. “Many people will be encouraged to come to court.”

The case also included amazing charges by lawyers for the family of the deceased, Nappel Benefides Leon, and her injured friend Delon Angelo. They claimed that Tesla either hide or lost the main evidence, including data and video recorded before the accident. Tesla said he made a mistake after showing the evidence and frankly he did not think he was there.

“We have finally learned what happened on that night, that the car was actually defective,” said Benavids’s sister, Nima Benefides. “Justice was achieved.”

Tesla has previously criticized that she was slowly coughing decisive data by other victims in Tesla incidents, accusations that the auto company denied. In this case, prosecutors showed that Tesla had evidence all the time, despite her frequent denial, by employing a forensic data expert he dug.

“Today’s ruling is wrong, and it only works to restore the safety of cars and expose Tesla and the entire industry efforts to develop and implement life rescue technology,” Tesla said.

In addition to a punitive prize of $ 200 million, the jury said that Tesla must also pay $ 43 million out of a total of 129 million dollars as compensation compensation for the crash, thus the total of the company reaches 243 million dollars.

“It is a large number that will send shock waves to others in this industry,” said financial analyst Dan Evez of Wedbush Securities. “It is not a good day for Tesla.”

Tesla said it would resume.

Even if this fails, the company says it will eventually end up paying much less than what the jury decided because of the pre -trial agreement that limits the penal damage to three times. Translation: 172 million dollars, not 243 million dollars. But the prosecutor says that their deal was based on a double of all compensatory damages, not only Tesla, and the number granted by the jury is what the company will have to pay.

It is not clear how much a blow to the reputation of Tesla for safety, the ruling on the Miami case will issue it. Tesla has greatly improved its technology since it crashed on a dark rural road in Key Largo, Florida, in 2019.

But the issue of confidence in general in the company appeared several times in the case, including the final arguments on Thursday. The main lawyer of the prosecutors, Brett Shrebar, said that the decision of Tesla even using the term automated pilot showed that he was ready to mislead people and carry great risks with their lives because the system only helps drivers who change in the corridors, slow the car and other tasks, and driving the car itself.

Sherbar said that other car manufacturers use terms such as “helping drivers” and “Copilot” to ensure that drivers do not depend much on technology.

“Words are important,” said Schrebyr. “If someone plays quickly and loses words, he plays quickly and loses information and facts.”

Sherbar acknowledged that the driver, George McGy, was neglected when he blew through the clear lights, the stop mark and T -62 miles per hour before he moved to Chevrolet Tahoe, the couple was stopping to take a look at the stars.

Tahoe revolves around her, and was able to launch Benavides 75 feet across the air to the nearby forests where her body was found later. He also left, who entered the courtroom on Friday with a lame and a pillow to sit on, with broken bones and brain injury.

But Schreiber said that Tesla was wrong. He said that Tesla allowed drivers to act recklessly by not deciphering the pilots as soon as they started to show signs of distraction and by allowing them to use the system on the smaller roads that were not designed, such as the McGe who was driving his car.

“I have trusted this technology too much,” said McGi at some point in his testimony. “I thought that if the car saw something in front of it, it would provide a warning and the brakes apply.”

The main defense lawyer in the Miami case, Joel Smith, replied that Tesla warns the drivers that they should keep their eyes on the road and live on the wheel, but McGy chose not to do this while looking for a mobile phone, adding to the danger by speed. Noting that McGe had passed by the same intersection 30 or 40 times before and did not break during any of these trips, Smith said that this isolated the reason for one thing alone: “The reason is that he dropped his mobile phone.”

The auto industry was closely seeing the issue because the discovery of Tesla, despite the driver’s recognition of reckless behavior, would pose great legal risks to each company because it is developing cars that are increasingly driving itself.

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Condon from New York.