Court records show Tesla has settled a lawsuit in Florida stemming from a 2018 high-speed crash that killed a teenager riding in a Tesla vehicle. The lawsuit was originally scheduled to be heard in state court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Monday local time. The plaintiff is the administrator of the estate of the person killed in the accident.
On Sunday local time, the court ordered Tesla to be removed from the defendant list, leaving only the estate administrators of the victims in the lawsuit. The lawsuit against Tesla has been settled, attorneys for the plaintiffs said in a court filing last week.
Families of the victims, whose estates have been fighting the lawsuit, said a Tesla technician without their knowledge disabled speed-limiting software that limits the vehicle's top speed to 85 mph (137 kph), court records show.
Tesla denies wrongdoing and insists the accident was caused by the driver's "reckless" driving, "whether or not the speed limiter was engaged." The motorist's attorney also denied the allegations made by the plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The exact terms of the lawsuit settlement are unclear. A court official confirmed the case was settled on Monday.
The plaintiff in this lawsuit is the family of a teenage passenger who was killed in the accident. A 2014 Tesla Model S sedan he was riding in was involved in an accident, and the 18-year-old driver of the same car also died.
According to court records, the 18-year-old Tesla driver was traveling at 116 mph (approximately 185 km/h) on a curve with a speed limit of 25 mph (approximately 40 km/h) before losing control and crashing the vehicle into two concrete walls.
Tesla has previously reached settlements in other incidents. In the most recent case, Tesla last year reached a settlement with the surviving family of a man who died in 2021 after his Tesla crashed and caught fire near Dayton, Ohio.
Tesla has denied any wrongdoing in the case. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
In February, Tesla failed in a Florida federal court's effort to overturn a $243 million jury verdict in a 2019 crash of a Model S equipped with Autopilot. The car accident resulted in the death of a 22-year-old woman and serious injuries to her boyfriend. Tesla is appealing the ruling.