Tesla asks for $243 million verdict to be tossed in fatal Autopilot crash suit

Tesla has filed a motion to appeal the verdict in a product liability and wrongful death lawsuit that could cost the company $242.5 million if it is not reduced or overturned.

Elon Musk's automaker has asked for the verdict to be tossed or for a new trial in Florida's Southern district court.

Gibson Dunn, which is representing Tesla in the appeal, argued that compensatory damages in the case should be steeply reduced from $129 million to $69 million at most. That would result in Tesla having to pay a $23 million award if the prior verdict holding the company partially liable for the crash stands up.

The firm also argued that punitive damages should be eliminated or reduced to, at most, three times compensatory damages due to a statutory cap in the state of Florida.

The suit focused on a fatal crash that occurred in 2019 in Key Largo, Florida, in which George McGee was driving his Tesla Model S sedan while using the company's Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system.

While driving, McGee dropped his mobile phone and scrambled to pick it up. He said during the trial that he believed Enhanced Autopilot would brake if an obstacle was in the way.

McGee's Model S accelerated through an intersection at just over 60 miles per hour, hitting a nearby empty parked car and its owners, who were standing on the other side of their vehicle.

The collision killed 22-year-old Naibel Benavides and severely injured her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo.

A jury in a Miami federal court earlier this month said that Tesla should compensate the family of the deceased and the injured survivor, paying a $242.5 million portion of a total $329 million in damages that they decided were appropriate.

In their motion to appeal, Tesla's lawyers argue that the Model S vehicle had no design defects, and that even alleged design defects could not be blamed for the crash, which they say was caused entirely by the driver.

"For as long as drivers remain at the wheel, any safety feature may embolden a few reckless drivers while enhancing safety for countless others," the appeal states. "Holding Tesla liable for providing drivers with advanced safety features just because a reckless driver overrode them cannot be reconciled with Florida law."

Tesla did not respond to a request for additional comment.

Brett Schreiber, lead trial counsel for the plaintiffs in this case, said in a statement that he believes the court will uphold the prior verdict, which should not be seen as "an indictment of the autonomous vehicle industry, but of Tesla's reckless and unsafe development and deployment of its Autopilot system."

"The jury heard all the facts and came to the right conclusion that this was a case of shared responsibility but that does not discount the integral role Autopilot and the company's misrepresentations of its capabilities played in the crash," he said.