Tesla has settled a lawsuit brought by the family of a Silicon Valley engineer who died in a crash while relying on the company’s semi-autonomous driving software.
The amount Tesla paid to settle the case was not disclosed in court documents filed Monday, just a day before the trial stemming from the 2018 crash on a San Francisco Bay Area highway was scheduled to begin. In a court filing requesting to keep the sum private, Tesla said it agreed to settle the case in order to “end years of litigation.”
Shares of Tesla Inc., down 30% this year, slipped 1% before the market opened Tuesday.
The family of Walter Huang filed a negligence and wrongful death lawsuit in 2019 seeking to hold Tesla — and, by extension, its CEO Elon Musk — liable for repeatedly exaggerating the capabilities of Tesla’s self-driving car technology. They claimed the technology, dubbed Autopilot, was promoted in egregious ways that caused vehicle owners to believe they didn’t have to remain vigilant while they were behind the wheel.