In a court ruling, a Florida judge said there was ‘reasonable evidence’ against the company. The court accuses Elon Musk and other executives at Tesla of selling defective Self-Driving software.
The court ruling came after the lawsuit over the death of a Tesla Model 3 driver who collided with a truck in 2019 in Miami. The driver, Stephen Banner, died due to the crash.
Judge Reid Scott allowed a lawsuit against Tesla to go to trial. He said that the court had found evidence against Tesla. The court has found that the company has marketed the vehicles by painting them autonomous. Furthermore, public statements of Elon Musk’s public statements about the technology also had a significant effect on the public’s belief in the capability of the vehicles.
Banner’s wife brought the lawsuit by accusing Tesla of gross negligence and intentional misconduct. The case possesses the capability to expose the automaker giant to punitive damages.
According to The Guardian,
“The ruling comes after Tesla won two product liability lawsuits in California earlier this year focused on alleged defects in its Autopilot system. Judge Scott also found that the plaintiff, Banner’s wife, should be able to argue to jurors that Tesla’s warnings in its manuals and “clickwrap” were inadequate. He said the accident is “eerily similar” to a 2016 fatal crash involving Joshua Brown in which the Autopilot system failed to detect crossing trucks.”
The Judge concluded that the CEO of Tesla and the engineers were fully aware of the problems with Tesla’s Autopilot feature. The feature does fail to detect cross-traffic in many instances.
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