Tesla

After a three-week-long trial, a Miami jury awarded $242.6 million to the families affected by a deadly 2019 crash in the Florida Keys.

The jury deliberated for about seven hours, according to reporting from The Miami Herald, and decided Tesla’s Autopilot system was partially responsible. As a result, the world-renowned company will be forced to pay $200 million in punitive damages and $42.6 million in compensatory damages to the surviving family members of Naibel Benavides Leon, 22, and her boyfriend, 33-year-old Dillon Angulo.

In the years since the technology was first launched, statements have been made about Tesla S’s ability to stop itself or avoid road obstacles in its path with little to no driver assistance. Angulo and the Benavides Leon family’s attorneys argued that the company was making false claims about its Autopilot system.

A trial is set to begin Monday, July 14, six years after 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon was killed and her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, 27, was injured in a horrific crash involving a Tesla Model S on autopilot.

The crash happened on April 25, 2019, when the couple was on a date and had pulled onto the shoulder of Card Sound Road in the Upper Keys. The driver, George McGee, was driving his 2019 Tesla Model S about 62 mph through an intersection and crashed into Leon and Angulo’s vehicle, according to reporting from Reuters. The two were standing beside the vehicle.

Before the crash, McGee allegedly reached down to pick up a cellphone and ran both a stop sign and a stop light before hitting the car, reporters said in the article.

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Tesla Trial Ends in 2019 Florida Keys Fatal Crash, $242.6 Million to Families. What to Know.

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