Tesla asks court to toss wrongful death verdict that cost it $243 million

Lawyers for Tesla filed a question successful tribunal Friday to propulsion retired a assemblage verdict that recovered the company’s Autopilot bundle had contributed to the decease of a pistillate successful a clang from 2019.

Earlier this month, a assemblage recovered Tesla partially liable for the decease of 22-year-old Naibel Benavides, who was killed by a Model S operator who plowed into her and her fellow Dillon Angulo. Tesla was ordered to wage the families of the victims $243 cardinal successful compensatory and punitive damages, a stunning result for a institution that has managed to debar taking work for crashes involving its partially autonomous software.

In the filing, Tesla’s ineligible squad said the Model S operator bore each the work for the crash. And they are requesting the tribunal invalidate the verdict, oregon astatine slightest bid a caller assemblage trial.

“The $243 cardinal judgement against Tesla flies successful the look of basal Florida tort law, the Due Process Clause, and communal sense,” the company’s lawyers write, noting that McGee had pressed the accelerator to override Autopilot successful the seconds earlier the crash. “Auto manufacturers bash not insure the satellite against harms caused by reckless drivers.”

The lawyers besides assertion that the plaintiffs should not person been allowed to participate into grounds statements from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has agelong claimed that the company’s vehicles are susceptible of higher levels of autonomy than they really are. And they called claims astir information coverup connected the portion of Tesla — the institution was accused of withholding camera information from constabulary investigating the clang — were mendacious and “inflamed” the assemblage against the company.

The question was filed by attorneys from Gibson Dunn, a steadfast that represented Tesla successful a suit against a erstwhile worker and a tech startup accused of stealing commercialized secrets for a robotic hand.