The jury trial I wrote about several weeks ago has come to a conclusion, with the jury finding Tesla liable in the death of Naibel Benavides Leon. Notably, the jury concluded that the driver, George McGee, was 67% responsible for the crash, while Tesla was 33% responsible. Nonetheless, Tesla will be required (pursuant to a judgment entered yesterday) to pay more than $42 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages.

The verdict may not survive appeal or may be reduced. Still, the result is a major vindication of the plaintiff’s theory of defect against Tesla, and ought to put the company on notice that its “blame the driver” litigation strategy may not hold water with juries.

Tesla was able to demonstrate at trial that the driver’s distraction was a significant factor in this case (in the language of 1L torts, a but-for cause). McGee dropped his cellphone and was looking for it on the floor of his car when he ran a stop sign at 65 miles per hour and crashed into a parked Chevy Tahoe. Tesla sought to pin blame for the crash on him, arguing that no level 2 driver assistance system could have prevented it. To some extent this worked, as shown by the jury’s finding that McGee was 67% responsible for the incident (he was not a defendant in the case, having previously settled plaintiffs’ separate case against him).

It bears emphasizing that most of the fatal crashes involving Autopilot have resulted in the deaths of the drivers themselves; the Benavides case is unusual in that the victim was an innocent bystander. In a more typical driver vs. Tesla case, the jury’s apportionment of fault would have resulted in the driver collecting nothing, under the comparative fault rules in most (but not all) states.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers, on the other hand, pointed out the various ways that Tesla’s “autopilot” could have been designed differently, starting with its name (which, many have long argued, creates a highly misleading impression of its capabilities). The major theories of design defect involved Tesla’s failure to restrict Autopilot to roads on which it was designed to be used (“operational design domain”) and its inadequate systems for ensuring driver attentiveness. I discussed both of these in more detail in my previous post. The verdict suggests that the jury agreed with these theories.

Perhaps even more significant is the punitive damages award.  At trial, there were suggestions that Tesla deleted data from the crash that its cars would otherwise maintain. Emphasis was also placed on the company’s history of crashes, and its tendency to overstate (to put it mildly) the capabilities of Autopilot, even as it continues to kill people. The punitive damages award ought to be a wake-up call to Tesla, especially as it makes aggressive moves to expand its “Robotaxi” business, with the eventual aim of removing drivers altogether.