Lawyer who beat Tesla in $243M verdict ready for 'round two'

In an unprecedented legal setback for Tesla, attorney Brett Schreiber recently secured a $243 million verdict in a wrongful death case, marking a significant departure from the automaker’s usual success in avoiding or winning such trials. The day after the Florida jury’s decision, Schreiber took to social media, celebrating a victory he believes will “change the world,” a sentiment he feels is well-earned.

The verdict stems from a 2019 crash that tragically killed 22-year-old Naibel Benavides and severely injured her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. While the driver of the Tesla Model S, George McGee, was deemed primarily responsible and had settled with the families in 2021, the jury found Tesla itself 33 percent liable. The resulting payout, encompassing both punitive and compensatory damages, is substantial, though it could face reduction on appeal. This outcome stands in stark contrast to Tesla’s typical strategy of settling fatality cases involving its driver-assistance technology, or its record of prevailing in the rare instances such cases have reached trial.

Schreiber attributes this shift to his clients’ unwavering resolve and a deliberate strategy to expose what he terms “two Teslas.” As he explained, “There’s Tesla in the showroom and then there’s Tesla in the courtroom.” The showroom Tesla, propagated by CEO Elon Musk for over a decade, promises fully self-driving cars with hardware capable of complete autonomy. Yet, in court, the company pivots, asserting these are merely driver-assistance features. This duality became the cornerstone of Schreiber’s closing argument, emphasizing that “choices and words matter.” His clients notably rejected a large, secret settlement, insisting that the case’s details be made public to “shine a light on what Tesla has done.” Soon, trial exhibits, including documents allegedly showing Tesla’s decade-long awareness of consistent system misuse, are expected to be unsealed, providing an unprecedented look into the company’s internal knowledge.

Central to Schreiber’s case was the extensive use of Elon Musk’s own public statements. The attorney played numerous clips from as early as 2015, where Musk asserted autonomous driving was a “solved problem,” that Tesla vehicles were “safer than humans,” and that they would “stop for anything.” Schreiber argued that these pronouncements shaped “the expectation of an ordinary consumer,” aligning with legal standards. He contended that Tesla could not publicly tout advanced capabilities for a decade and then, in court, defend itself by claiming the technology it advertised didn’t actually exist in 2019. The jury, he noted, “saw through it.”

Schreiber also highlighted key differences between Tesla’s approach to advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and those of other automakers. While contemporary Level 2 systems from companies like GM (Super Cruise) and Ford (BlueCruise) incorporated functional driver monitoring via infrared cameras and were “geofenced” for specific, pre-mapped roadways, Tesla chose not to implement such measures. Furthermore, many other systems would disengage lane centering if the adaptive cruise control was overridden, a safety feature Tesla also lacked. Schreiber characterized Tesla as “a tech company that got into cars,” rather than the reverse, suggesting this led to the release of “beta products” disguised as finished goods.

Addressing critiques from Tesla’s fanbase, who argue that the Autopilot system involved in the 2019 crash is outdated compared to current “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) iterations, Schreiber was dismissive. He asserted that the newer FSD is “not better,” noting Tesla’s controversial decision to remove radar in favor of a camera-only system. He stressed that the industry’s “holy trinity of safety” involves a combination of lidar, radar, and cameras, arguing that a camera-only system cannot surpass human drivers. Internal Tesla documents, he revealed, even indicated Autopilot was at fault in 6 percent of crashes they received information on in 2019.

The trial also shed light on Tesla’s opaque data handling. Schreiber indicated that Tesla receives immediate crash data but is “not always forthright” with this information, particularly because law enforcement and government investigators often lack the expertise to fully comprehend it. He pointed to a forthcoming unsealing of a motion for sanctions against Tesla for allegedly withholding evidence for four years, hinting at revelations about data deletion following a previous fatal Autopilot crash.

Looking ahead, the verdict sends a potent message as Tesla pushes for its robotaxi service. Schreiber hopes it will compel Tesla to “elevate people’s lives and people’s safety over greed and profits.” He criticized the company’s continued reliance on camera-only systems for future robotaxis, noting the resolution is inferior to a human eye or even a modern iPhone. “You cannot use our public roadways as your personal laboratory to test production vehicles,” he stated, emphasizing that “an incident to the families impacted is known as a funeral.”

The implications extend to future litigation. Schreiber is already poised for “round two” with Maldonado v. Tesla in California, set to begin in 75 days. California law, unlike Florida’s, does not cap punitive damages at three times compensatory damages, opening the door for potentially even larger awards. Crucially, in the Maldonado case, Schreiber possesses testimony from former senior Autopilot leadership who, when shown Musk’s public statements, confirmed they were untrue about production vehicles. “He not only betrayed the public, he betrayed his own engineers,” Schreiber declared, aiming to leverage this “betrayal” as a powerful emotional factor for the jury.