Tesla hit with $243 million in damages after jury finds its Autopilot feature contributed to fatal crash

A federal court jury found Tesla partly liable on Friday in a 2019 car crash that killed a pedestrian and left another person badly injured when the car was in Autopilot mode.

MIAMI — A federal jury on Friday found Tesla partly liable in a 2019 car crash that killed a pedestrian and left another person badly injured when the car was in Autopilot mode.

The jury awarded the plaintiffs $43 million in compensatory damages for pain and suffering plus $200 million in punitive damages, which are intended to deter future harmful behavior by Tesla.

The verdict is a blow for Tesla and CEO Elon Musk as they try to convince the public, government regulators and investors that their self-driving software is safe.

The eight-person jury said that Tesla was partly to blame for the crash in the Florida Keys six years ago, when neither the driver of the Tesla sedan nor the Autopilot software braked in time for an intersection. The jury assigned Tesla one-third of the blame and assigned two-thirds to the driver, who was reaching for his cell phone at the time of the crash. He was sued separately.

The jury found that the plaintiffs experienced pain and suffering totaling $129 million, but Tesla will be required to pay only a third of that, or $43 million in compensatory damages, given its partial liability, a spokesperson for the plaintiffs' lawyers said.