An appeals court Wednesday shielded Tesla from potential punitive damages in a lawsuit stemming from the 2019 death of a man who was using autopilot features of his car when it crashed into a semi-truck trailer.
A three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal overturned a Palm Beach County circuit judge’s decision that would have allowed the estate of Jeremy Banner to pursue punitive damages against the electric-car maker.
The estate sued Tesla for strict liability and negligence and sought to add a punitive-damages claim. Banner in 2019 was driving a Tesla Model 3 in Palm Beach County when a truck driver allegedly drove through a stop sign, Wednesday’s opinion said. Banner’s car struck the middle of the trailer, with the collision shearing off the top of the car and killing him.
The lawsuit alleged that “despite Tesla marketing and selling the Model 3 as a ‘state-of-the-art’ automobile with a ‘full self-driving capability package,’ the vehicle lacked a sufficient crash avoidance system,” the opinion said. But in considering whether the estate should be able to seek punitive damages, the appeals court said the legal standard is “whether Tesla engaged in gross negligence so egregious that it is equivalent to criminal manslaughter.”
The opinion, written by Judge Jeffrey Kuntz and joined by Judges Spencer Levine and Alan Forst, said the record in the case “does not support a finding that Tesla knew, or reasonably should have known, that its … driving assistance features were likely to cause death or great bodily injury. Instead, the evidence indicates Tesla’s Autopilot features were ‘state-of-the-art’ and complied with all industry and regulatory standards.”