Tesla removed speed limiter before teens’ fatal crash, is declared 1% responsible

MIAMI (AP) — A jury in Florida has found Tesla just 1% negligent in a fiery crash that killed two teens, for disabling a speed limiter on the car.

Tuesday’s verdict placed 90% of the blame on the driver, 18-year-old Barrett Riley, and 9% on his father, James Riley, who brought the lawsuit against Tesla.

It’s the first known case involving a Tesla crash that has gone to trial, said Michael Brooks, acting exective director at the Center for Auto Safety, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization.

Barrett Riley and his friend Edgar Monserratt Martinez were about to graduate from their private high school in South Florida when they died in the May 2018 crash near Fort Lauderdale Beach. A backseat passenger was ejected and survived.

The car missed a curve and hit the concrete wall on the right side and then on the left side of the road. It then caught fire.

Witnesses told investigators the Tesla driver went into the left lane to pass another vehicle and lost control while trying to return to the right lane. At the crash site on Seabreeze Boulevard, the road curves to the left, and there’s a warning sign with a flashing beacon.

The National Transportation Safety Board determined Barrett Riley was driving at 116 mph in a 30-mph zone, and the most likely cause of the crash “was the driver’s loss of control as a result of excessive speed.”

James Riley claimed the crash was “entirely survivable” and that it was the ensuing fire that killed the teenagers, but the judge dismissed his lawsuit’s claim that Tesla designed defective lithium ion batteries that “burst into an uncontrollable and fatal fire” upon impact.

James Riley also said Tesla removed a speed limiter without his permission. After Barrett got a ticket in March 2018 for driving 112 mph on a road with a 50-mph speed limit, his father ordered the instrument installed to prevent his son from driving at more than 85 mph.

An investigation found that about a month before the crash, the teen asked workers at Tesla’s Dania Beach dealership to return the car to normal operating mode while it was being serviced.

Tesla denied negligence in disabling the speed limiter. The company argued that the teen’s parents were negligent in allowing him to drive the vehicle “when they were aware of his history of speeding and reckless driving,” according to the judge’s instructions to the jury.

Jurors recommended awarding $6 million to the teen’s mother, Jenny Riley, for pain and suffering, and $4.5 million to the father, the newspaper reported.

But the apportionment of responsibility means Tesla will only be liable for $105,000, which is equivalent to 1% of the negligence as determined by the verdict, according to Curt Miner, an attorney representing the Riley family.

Edgar Monserratt’s parents have also filed a wrongful-death suit that says Tesla “negligently” allowed Barrett Riley to disable a speed limiter and “failed to warn of defects in the Model S.”

In February of this year, Bloomberg reported that a filing in the Monserratt case cited a series of emails between Tesla founder Elon Musk and James Riley in the weeks after the crash.

In the emails, Musk expresses his condolences and offers to provide the family with data from the crash, as well as speak to the family personally over the phone. Musk brings up the death of his own son Nevada, who died at 10 weeks, and says, “There is nothing worse than losing a child.”

The emails were included in a motion requesting that Musk be ordered to submit to questioning about Tesla’s Autopilot assisted-driving feature.