Benavides v. Tesla: a jury assigns a third of the responsibility for a 2019 Autopilot crash to the maker of the system, Miami, 1 August 2025

Changes to what this case says, with the reason. Every earlier version is kept.

• 2026-10-20: Sources: cc: title. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: the page's headline is 'miami tesla autopilot trial: $329 million jury verdict', by david a. wood, dated august 1, 2025, with 'the original story is below' dated july 23, 2025; the old title was a paraphrase without the author.
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  Before: CarComplaints, 'Miami Tesla Autopilot trial: jury verdict', August 2025 (trial reporting)

  After: CarComplaints, 'Miami Tesla Autopilot Trial: $329 Million Jury Verdict', David A. Wood, 1 August 2025 (first published 23 July 2025 during the trial)
• 2026-10-20: Controls: c-v1. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: 'eventually produced' implied tesla produced the data, which the record does not show. tesla's post-trial reply (ecf no. 603) says the plaintiffs' experts acknowledged 'nothing's really deleted' from the autopilot computer in mcgee's vehicle, that the court found no bad faith and no prejudice 'by the delay in getting the data', and that a tesla technician 'accidently deleted this file' from tesla's own servers; the court's order (ecf no. 612) refers to 'data-related evidence obtained from the vehicle'. bucket and confidence unchanged.
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  Before: Vehicle data capture (eventually produced)

  After: Vehicle data capture (the data survived on the car's Autopilot computer and was obtained for trial after a dispute over whether Tesla had withheld it)
• 2026-10-20: Outcome: cost. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: $242.57 million is the judgment against tesla after the 33% apportionment (final judgment, ecf no. 538; order, ecf no. 612); the jury's verdict itself was $129 million in compensatory damages ($59 million and $70 million, ecf no. 612 footnote 1) plus $200 million in punitive damages, so 'verdict' was the wrong word for the $243 million figure.
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  Before: ~$243M verdict against Tesla (appeal pending)

  After: ~$243M judgment against Tesla (appeal pending)
• 2026-10-20: Fields: recovery: automated fallback. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: 'none; no stop or hand-off' was cited to the final judgment, which says nothing about the car's behaviour, and stated the plaintiffs' side only. carcomplaints reports the allegation that the car gave no alert and never engaged its emergency brakes and that mcgee drove through the intersection; tesla's post-trial reply (ecf no. 603) says the car 'continuously warned him that he had deactivated cruise-control braking' and gave a '[t]ake over immediately' warning 1.5 seconds before impact. both accounts stated, marked disputed, confidence lowered to medium.
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  Before: {"value": "None; no stop or hand-off at the road's end", "confidence": "high", "disputed": false, "source_ids": ["SDFL"]}

  After: {"value": "No automatic stop: the car did not stop before the intersection. Whether it signalled a hand-off is disputed: plaintiffs allege it gave no alert and never braked; Tesla says it continuously warned that cruise control would not brake while the accelerator was pressed and gave a take-over warning 1.5 seconds before impact", "confidence": "medium", "disputed": true, "source_ids": ["CC", "ECF603"]}
• 2026-10-20: Fields: evidence: interpretation: source ids. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: the final judgment (sdfl) says nothing about evidence; tesla's post-trial reply (ecf no. 603) records that the plaintiffs told the jury tesla 'deleted ... the file', and the court's order (ecf no. 612) records tesla's challenge to 'the improper admission of data-related evidence obtained from the vehicle', which it denied.
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  Before: ["SDFL"]

  After: ["ECF603", "ECF612"]
• 2026-10-20: Fields: outcome: source ids. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: the final judgment (sdfl) gives the amounts but not the injuries; the court's order of february 2026 (ecf no. 612) states the crash killed benavides leon and caused 'significant injuries to angulo' and confirms the $242,570,000.00 judgment.
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  Before: ["SDFL"]

  After: ["SDFL", "ECF612"]
• 2026-10-20: Fields: envelope: basis: source ids. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: carcomplaints does not say that restricting engagement was itself litigated; tesla's post-trial reply (ecf no. 603) does: the plaintiffs' design-defect claim rested on three theories, 'operational design domain, driver monitoring system, and automatic emergency braking/forward collision warning', and their expert 'faulted tesla for not geofencing autopilot'. cited for the claim as worded.
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  Before: ["CC"]

  After: ["CC", "ECF603"]
• 2026-10-20: Fields: decision. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: the field gave the plaintiffs' allegation of no warning without tesla's answer to it; tesla's post-trial reply (ecf no. 603) says 'his vehicle continuously warned him that he had deactivated cruise-control braking by pressing the accelerator' and describes a '[t]ake over immediately' collision warning 1.5 seconds before impact. both accounts are now stated; the field stays disputed.
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  Before: {"value": "Plaintiffs alleged the car detected the stop sign and obstacles but gave no warning and never braked; Tesla's position is that the driver was pressing the accelerator, which overrode Autopilot", "source_ids": ["CC"]}

  After: {"value": "Plaintiffs alleged the car detected the stop sign and obstacles but gave no warning and never braked; Tesla's position is that the driver was pressing the accelerator, which overrode Autopilot, and that the car continuously warned him that pressing the accelerator had turned off cruise-control braking and gave a take-over warning 1.5 seconds before impact", "source_ids": ["CC", "ECF603"]}
• 2026-10-20: Fields: actor: source ids. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: the final judgment (sdfl) does not mention autopilot or the model s; the court's order of february 2026 (ecf no. 612, new source) says mcgee owned 'a 2019 tesla model s' 'equipped with automatic driving features, one of which tesla termed "autopilot"', so the fact is cited to that court record.
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  Before: ["SDFL", "CC"]

  After: ["ECF612", "CC"]
• 2026-10-20: Fields: mandate: principal. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: no source mentions 'terms of use'; carcomplaints reports the owner's manual warnings ('the model s owner's manual clearly warns that autopilot ...'), and the jury verdict form (ecf no. 534) asks whether 'tesla place[d] the 2019 model s on the market with a defect'. the final judgment (sdfl) does not mention the driver or the manual, so it is no longer cited.
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  Before: {"value": "The driver, under Tesla's terms of use; Tesla as designer and seller", "source_ids": ["SDFL"]}

  After: {"value": "The driver, under the owner's manual's warnings; Tesla as designer and seller", "source_ids": ["CC", "ECF534"]}
• 2026-10-20: Inference: source ids. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: the verdict form (ecf no. 534, new source) carries the apportionment between tesla and the driver and the punitive-damages finding; the notice of appeal (ecf no. 616) carries the appeal.
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  Before: ["SDFL"]

  After: ["SDFL", "ECF534", "ECF616"]
• 2026-10-20: Inference: value. Found in the editor's source re-check of 19-20 october 2026: the second sentence ('with the boeing case, it is one of two cases where accountability reached the maker of the automation') is contradicted by the register's own records: accountability also reached the makers of the automation in the cruise case (reg-0003: nhtsa consent order and civil penalty, deferred prosecution agreement with the us attorney's office and criminal fine, dmv permit suspension, cpuc penalty) and the knight capital case (reg-0007: sec penalty, censure and cease-and-desist), as well as the boeing case (reg-0009: department of justice deferred prosecution agreement). a search of every object in objects/ (reg-0001 to reg-0037) and objects/withdrawn for 'jury', 'verdict' and 'punitive' finds them only in this case, so the replacement sentence is checked against the register: the other makers were reached by regulators or prosecutors, and the air canada tribunal (reg-0010) and the workday ruling (reg-0020) were decided by a tribunal and a judge, not a jury. the jury verdict form (ecf no. 534) apportions 33% to tesla and 67% to the driver, george mcgee, and awards punitive damages; it records answers and amounts, not reasons. tesla's notice of appeal (ecf no. 616) shows the judgment is under appeal. the interpretation was signed by the editor on 2026-10-19; signed_by and signed_on are set to null and the editor must sign the new wording.
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  Before: Here a jury held the maker of a driver-assistance system partly responsible, with punitive damages, not only the driver. With the Boeing case, it is one of two cases where accountability reached the maker of the automation

  After: Here a jury held the maker of a driver-assistance system partly responsible, with punitive damages, not only the driver. It is the Register's only case so far in which a jury, rather than a regulator or prosecutor, placed responsibility on the maker of the automation. The judgment is under appeal, and the verdict form does not show the jury's reasons
• 2026-10-16: Inference: value. Found in an outside review of the published record on 16 october 2026: the interpretation implied this was the first case to reach a maker, overlooking the boeing case (reg-0009).
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  Before: With this case, accountability reached the maker of the automation, not only the operator or the person supervising it

  After: Here a jury held the maker of a driver-assistance system partly responsible, with punitive damages, not only the driver. With the Boeing case, it is one of two cases where accountability reached the maker of the automation
• 2026-10-16: Controls: c-e2: confidence. Found in an outside review of the published record on 16 october 2026: the register has not seen the trial evidence on this point and the verdict is under appeal.
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  Before: high

  After: medium
• 2026-10-13: Fields. Independent check against the linked records before right-of-reply letters.
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  Before: decision, design-domain basis and jury reasoning stated without a source; 'about 60 mph' striking two people; driver's share 'two thirds'; data claim without Tesla's side

  After: plaintiffs' allegation and Tesla's position both recorded; manual wording quoted; driver's accelerator input and the Tahoe recorded; driver settled; court's bad-faith ruling noted
• 2026-10-13: Fields and sources. Claims aligned to what each linked record says, found on review.
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  Before: crash facts, design domain, and data-recovery claim cited to the final judgment; 'first jury verdict against Tesla over Autopilot in a wrongful-death case'; appeal pending

  After: judgment linked for the verdict only; crash facts typed as press-reported assertions; data claim recorded as contested at trial; 'first verdict' removed (not in the record); post-trial motions denied and appeal filed, from the docket
• 2026-10-13: Controls: c-e2. A control has one state per case; entries in two states merged into the state the record supports.
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  Before: failed: Design-domain restriction (engagement allowed off-domain); absent: Hard geofence to the design domain

  After: failed: Design-domain restriction (engagement allowed off-domain); Hard geofence to the design domain (absent)