Tesla settles wrongful death lawsuit after Florida crash that killed a teenager
Tesla , owned by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, has reached a settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit in Florida stemming from a 2018 high-speed crash that killed a teenager riding in one of the company's electric sedans, according to court records. A trial in this lawsuit was scheduled to begin on Monday (April 20) in state court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, against the heirs of the Tesla driver who caused the accident. Tesla was removed from the list of defendants by a court order issued on Sunday, leaving only the driver's heirs in the lawsuit. Lawyers for the plaintiff stated in a filing with the court last week that the lawsuit against Tesla had been settled, according to Reuters. Court records showed that the driver's parents, who were fighting the legal battle, said that a Tesla technician had, without their knowledge, disabled the speed limiter software that prevented the car from exceeding 137 kilometers per hour (85 miles per hour). Tesla denied any wrongdoing, asserting that the driver's "reckless" driving caused the accident "whether or not there was a speed limit." Details of the settlement were not immediately known, but a court official confirmed that the case was settled on Monday. The plaintiff was a teenage passenger who died in a 2018 crash inside a 2014 Tesla Model S, an accident that also killed the teenage driver. According to court records, the 18-year-old driver was traveling at 116 miles per hour on a 25-mile-per-hour curve when he lost control and his car crashed into two concrete walls. Tesla has settled several other lawsuits related to its car accidents. In one recent case, the company settled a wrongful death lawsuit last year filed by the heirs of a man who died in 2021 after his Tesla crashed and caught fire near Dayton, Ohio. Tesla denied any wrongdoing in the case, and the terms of the settlement were not disclosed. In February, Tesla lost its attempt in a US federal court in Florida to overturn a jury verdict awarding $243 million in damages in a 2019 crash involving a Model S equipped with its self-driving system, which killed a 22-year-old woman and seriously injured her boyfriend. Tesla is currently appealing the verdict.
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