A Miami jury has ordered Tesla to pay $243 million over a fatal 2019 Autopilot crash in Florida after a hacker sipping on a Venti-size hot chocolate at a local Starbucks uncovered key vehicle data that the company had claimed it could not find.
The verdict, delivered last month in federal court, held Tesla partially liable for the Key Largo wreck that killed 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and left her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, seriously injured.
Jurors saw evidence showing that Tesla’s own systems recorded a “collision snapshot” in the moments before the crash — data the company insisted was missing until a hacker extracted it from the car’s Autopilot computer at a Starbucks, according to the Washington Post.
Tesla had argued the crash was caused entirely by driver George McGee, who admitted he was using Autopilot when he looked down to grab a cellphone.
But the jury sided in part with Angulo and the Benavides family, which accused Tesla of misleading them for years about what data were available.
The hacker, known online as @greentheonly, recovered the deleted snapshot last fall. He found the file “within minutes” and confirmed it had been transmitted to Tesla’s servers immediately after the wreck.
The reconstructed data showed the Tesla’s cameras spotted a vehicle roughly 170 feet away and a pedestrian about 116 feet out, as the car plotted a path through the couple’s parked truck.
Tesla’s trial attorney, Joel Smith, admitted the company had been “clumsy” but denied misconduct.
“We didn’t think we had it, and we found out we did … this is an amazingly helpful piece of information,” he said.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers countered that Tesla not only failed to warn the driver that the road was ending but also “deceived” investigators about data it had “before the cops even arrived.”
The Miami verdict marked a rare courtroom defeat for Tesla’s driver-assist technology. The company has won other Autopilot cases and quietly settled several more, but lawyers say this one cracked open Tesla’s secretive crash data systems in a way that resonated with jurors.
“The message from the jury is that ‘You did something wrong, change what you’re doing,’” attorney Don Slavik, who has multiple Autopilot cases pending, told the Washington Post.
Already, the ruling is reverberating beyond Florida. A Texas shareholder lawsuit cites the Miami verdict to allege Tesla defrauded investors over its autonomy claims.
In California, another fatal crash case tied to Autopilot is set for trial this fall, with plaintiffs’ attorneys vowing to seek a verdict “north of a billion dollars.”
Tesla has asked the judge to throw out the Miami verdict or order a new trial, arguing that the data dispute was “irrelevant.”
The company vows to appeal if necessary, keeping alive the legal battle over who bears responsibility when experimental software collides with distracted driving.
For Angulo and the Benavides family, the judgment was less about money than exposing Tesla’s handling of the case.
“We have this relief that the world knows, but it doesn’t change anything for us,” said Naibel’s sister, Neima.
“My sister is not here. And nothing will bring her back.”
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., Tesla’s lead attorney in the case, provided a statement to The Post which read: “This is an important case because unfounded and unconstitutional verdicts like this one against Tesla pose real dangers to safety innovation and technological advancement, creating perverse incentives for manufacturers by discouraging new safety enhancements.”
Boutrous told The Post that the Supreme Court “has repeatedly warned about the due-process dangers of arbitrary and grossly excessive punitive-damage awards.”
“This verdict is a true outlier given the facts and law and we look forward to setting things right,” Boutrous told The Post.
