Lawsuit Details
The family of 76-year-old Martha Avila has launched a legal battle against the automaker after she was killed when a Tesla Model 3 crashed into her house in Katy, Texas, on June 19. In a lawsuit filed in Harris County state court by her daughter Jennifer Barbour and son-in-law Justin Barbour, it is alleged that Tesla failed to adequately warn drivers about the alleged defects in its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) systems.
The lawsuit seeks more than $1 million in damages and punitive damages, alleging that Tesla "recklessly disregarded the risk of serious bodily injury."
Moment of the Crash
According to the Harris County Sheriff's Office, driver Michael Butler stated that he lost control of the vehicle after engaging the Autopilot feature. Footage obtained by Houston CBS affiliate KHOU shows the vehicle traveling at high speed through Avila's front yard before crashing into the living room. It was noted that Butler was not intoxicated at the time of the crash and cooperated with the investigation.
Tesla's Defense
In a post on X platform on Monday night, Elon Musk said, "FSD drives slowly on neighborhood streets, this was a high-speed crash!" Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's Vice President of AI Software, stated that "the driver manually overrode the self-driving mode by pressing the accelerator pedal 100 percent in this residential area."
Butler is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. However, it is not yet known whether Butler has an attorney.
Tesla's Safety Record
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an investigation into the crash. NHTSA has conducted about 50 special investigations involving Tesla vehicles' advanced driver assistance systems since 2016. Approximately two dozen deaths have been reported in these crashes. In March, NHTSA expanded its investigation into 3.2 million Tesla vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving over concerns about failure to detect the system or warn drivers in low-visibility conditions. In 2023, Tesla recalled nearly 2 million vehicles in the U.S., covering almost all its electric vehicles, to ensure drivers pay attention to the road while using Autopilot.
The crash comes at a time when Musk's company has launched robotaxis using automated software in several U.S. cities this year and plans to invite Tesla owners nationwide to enroll their vehicles in the fleet using the same system.
