Tesla loses crucial Autopilot ruling that could cost hundreds of millions

24 Feb 2026, 01:33 · The Fresno Bee

Tesla rolled the dice with a lawsuit it thought it could win easily last year, but it struck out after a U.S. judge upheld the $243 million jury verdict against the company over a fatal crash in southern Florida last year involving the now-defunct Autopilot.

Last August, a Florida jury ruled that the family of Naibel Benavides and crash survivor Dillon Angulo were entitled to the nearly quarter-billion-dollar award after driver George McGee crashed his Tesla into a vehicle they were standing outside of.

McGee testified that he had Autopilot engaged when he killed the 22-year-old Benavides in Key Largo in 2019, but that his eyes were also off the road while he looked for the cellphone he had dropped.

While Tesla argued that data showed McGee had his foot on the accelerator, overriding Autopilot, in the moments before his vehicle crashed at over 60 mph, the jury found Tesla 33% responsible for the crash.

"Tesla in the showroom tells you that they've invented the greatest full self-driving car the world has ever seen," Brett Schrieber, the plaintiffs' lawsuit litigator, said at the time. "Mr. Musk has been peddling to consumers and investors for more than a decade that the cars are fully self-driving and that the hardware is capable of full autonomy. And those statements were as untrue the day he said them as they remain untrue today."

Tesla was unsuccessful in its attempt to overturn a $243 million judgment in the case of a 2019 fatal crash involving what was then called Full Self-Driving.

Photo by PonyWang on Getty Images

Judge rules against Tesla in bid to overturn $243 million judgment

U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom affirmed the jury's initial verdict last Friday, Feb. 20, saying that the evidence at trial "more than supports" the judgment and that Tesla raised no new arguments to warrant reconsideration.

Tesla is expected to appeal the ruling after failing to overturn the award judgment, according to Reuters.

Tesla has made major changes to its description of what its driver assistance technology can do, as it has known for more than a year about the growing legal liability surrounding its claims regarding the technology.

Tesla quietly changed its FSD package, then known as "Full Self-Driving," to "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)," and instead of promising the car could completely drive itself, it also changed the language to state that the car would only drive "with minimal driver intervention."

Last month, Tesla canceled Autopilot, the most basic tier of its advanced driver assistance program, on new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. The move removed the Autosteer lane-centering feature from the vehicle's base configurations, leaving only the Traffic-Aware Cruise Control feature.

The company also no longer allows vehicle owners to buy FSD (Supervised) outright. Now they can only pay for the tech on a subscription basis.

Tesla has settled numerous FSD/Autopilot lawsuits in the past

Tesla has a track record of either settling Autopilot death lawsuits or outright winning them, reported Lowe Trial Lawyers. Tesla approached Schreiber with a settlement offer, but the plaintiffs rejected it.

"Well, I mean, they did make an overture to settle the case, and for a very large sum of money. Now, it was a fraction of the verdict, but the condition of the settlement was that it would be secret. And my clients were not interested in a secret settlement," he said.

Tesla's history of settling lawsuits

$10.5 million settlement – California, 2023: A Tesla Model X with Autopilot engaged hit a highway barrier, killing the driver. The family said Autopilot failed to detect the obstacle and that Tesla misrepresented the vehicle's capabilities.
$8.2 million settlement – California, 2022: A pedestrian was killed in a crosswalk by a Tesla Model 3 with Autopilot engaged that didn't stop or alert the driver of an issue until it was too late.
$7.5 million settlement – California, 2021: A Tesla Model S with Autopilot engaged rear-ended a stopped vehicle at high speed, instantly killing the victim. Investigators said they found no evidence that the car even tried to brake before the collision.
$6.8 million settlement – California, 2020: A Tesla Model X with Autopilot engaged crashed into a parked fire truck. The driver of the vehicle survived, but the passenger died from blunt force trauma.

Just weeks before the trials were set to begin, Tesla also reached confidential settlements in two additional lawsuits brought over the deaths of people involved in crashes featuring Autopilot, Reuters reported, citing court documents.

The settlement notice for one lawsuit related to the 2019 death of a 15-year-old boy, who was traveling in Alameda County, Calif., with his father when their vehicle was rear-ended by a Tesla Model 3 with Autopilot engaged.

The victims' vehicle rolled over and crashed into the center barrier, killing the youth.

The second case, also from 2019, involved two people in a Honda Civic traveling through an intersection in Gardena, Calif., when a Tesla Model S with Autopilot engaged plowed through a red light and crashed into their car.

Tesla settled its case with the victims, but Reuters reported that the driver of the vehicle and "some other defendants" will continue their trial.

In August, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that Tesla must face a California class-action lawsuit alleging the company misled customers about Full Self-Driving's capabilities.

During his arguments, Schreiber seized on the idea of Tesla misleading customers.

"[Musk] says these things for a reason. He says this to create this idea in the public's mind that these cars are more than they really are," Schreiber said.

"He makes these comments, going back to 2015. Autonomous driving is a solved problem. They are safer than humans. It will stop for anything. It knows if there's something metal and something dense in front of it, it should stop. It doesn't matter if it's an alien spaceship, he said. And we played all of those (during the trial) because that aligns with the law."

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This story was originally published February 23, 2026 at 5:33 PM.