Florida jury hits Tesla with $243 million verdict in fatal autopilot crash
UPDATE: Aug. 3, 2025, 8:28 a.m. This article has been updated to correct inaccuracies about the total amount Tesla was ordered to pay in the court ruling.
A Florida jury has found Tesla partially liable in a fatal crash involving its Autopilot system, ordering the Elon Musk-owned company to pay over $240 million in damages. The verdict marks a major legal blow for Tesla and a significant moment in the broader debate over the safety of autonomous driving technology.
A federal judge in Miami has ordered Tesla to pay $42.5 million — roughly 33 percent of the $129 million in compensatory damages — along with an additional $200 million in punitive damages to the estate of Naibel Benavides Leon and her former partner, Dillon Angulo. In a statement emailed to Mashable, Tesla said it plans to appeal the ruling.
“Today’s verdict is wrong,” the company said. “It only serves to set back automotive safety and jeopardizes not just Tesla’s efforts, but the entire industry’s work to develop life-saving technology. We plan to appeal due to substantial legal errors and irregularities during the trial.”
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Tesla also argued that, under Florida law governing product liability cases, punitive damages should be capped at three times the compensatory award (In this case, Tesla would pay 127.5 million instead of $200 million). That would reduce Tesla’s maximum payout to $170 million, not the $243 million currently on the table. The company said it’s confident “the punitive damage award at a minimum, and likely this whole verdict, will be overturned by the appellate court.”
According to the Associated Press, the plaintiffs argue that the punitive damages were calculated based on a multiple of the total compensatory damages, not just Tesla’s share. As a result, they maintain that the full amount awarded by the jury is valid and enforceable.
This is the first case in which Tesla has been held responsible for a wrongful death as a result of its Autopilot technology, according to a Reuters expert. That said, Tesla’s driver-assist software has been linked to hundreds of crashes, enough to warrant its own Wikipedia page.
The lawsuit stemmed from a 2019 incident in which a Tesla Model S driver, reportedly not paying attention while Autopilot was engaged, blew through a stop sign and red light before slamming into a parked Chevrolet Tahoe. Naibel Benavides Leon was standing next to the SUV at the time and was killed. Her former boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, survived with injuries.
"Today’s verdict represents justice for Naibel’s tragic death and Dillon’s lifelong injuries," Brett Schreiber, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. "Tesla designed Autopilot only for controlled-access highways yet deliberately chose not to restrict drivers from using it elsewhere, alongside Elon Musk telling the world Autopilot drove better than humans."
The ruling is a significant blow to Musk and Tesla, coming at a time when the billionaire is aggressively pushing to expand the company’s robotaxi initiative. As Musk works to convince investors and the public that Tesla can lead the future of autonomous driving, a $329 million verdict tied to its Autopilot system raises serious questions about the safety and legal risk of that vision and could open the company up to more Autopilot-related lawsuits in the future.
Topics Electric Vehicles Tesla
Chance Townsend is the General Assignments Editor at Mashable, covering tech, video games, dating apps, digital culture, and whatever else comes his way. He has a Master's in Journalism from the University of North Texas and is a proud orange cat father. His writing has also appeared in PC Mag and Mother Jones.
In his free time, he cooks, loves to sleep, and greatly enjoys Detroit sports. If you have any tips or want to talk shop about the Lions, you can reach out to him on Bluesky @offbrandchance.bsky.social or by email at [email protected].
