Tesla defends itself against wrongful death lawsuit filed by wife of employee killed in car accident

Tesla’s response, filed Thursday, says the company “denies liability for any damages” and requests that the case be moved from state court to federal court.

A Washington Post investigation in February found that Hans von Ohain, a Tesla recruiter, was using the so-called Full Self-Driving function of his Tesla Model 3 when it crashed into a tree in Evergreen, Co. and burst into flames. This may make him the first documented fatality coupled with the most advanced driver assistance technology the company offers. After Tesla initially declined to comment on The Post’s reporting, CEO Elon Musk later wrote in a post on X that von Ohain had not loaded the “Full Self-Driving” feature into his car, without providing any evidence to support this claim.

Tesla and Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The lawsuit, filed in May by Nora Bass, Ohain’s wife, is the latest legal challenge to Tesla. The plaintiff claims a fatal or serious accident occurred while the driver relied on a technology that Musk has made core to the automaker’s brand. Fully autonomous driving and another driver-assistance feature, Autopilot, control steering and other actions normally left to the human behind the wheel.

Musk has announced plans to unveil a fully autonomous taxi called the “Cybercab” in August, but has given few details. Meanwhile, Tesla is fighting at least eight other lawsuits in addition to the Colorado case. — alleging flaws in the company’s driver-assistance technology and will face trial next year. The Colorado crash is also one of hundreds of Tesla vehicles being investigated by federal and state authorities for the role the company’s driver-assistance technology may have played in a collision.

On Thursday, Tesla filed a motion to move the case from Colorado state district court to federal court. The company argued that the case qualifies for federal court because the two parties are from different states and Bass is seeking more than $75,000 in damages. Bass’ lawyers declined to disclose the total amount they are seeking.

“We will continue to fight vigorously for Ohain’s family and ensure they get the justice they deserve,” Jonathan Michaels, Bass’s attorney, said in a statement. The lawsuit refers to the crashed vehicle’s driver-assist features only as Autopilot, but Michaels says that was intended as a “catch-all term” for all of the car’s automation technology, including fully autonomous driving.

In previous lawsuits against Tesla, the company has stated that it is not liable for the accidents or deaths because the driver is ultimately in control of the vehicle. But this claim is increasingly coming under scrutiny due to the flood of Lawsuits and federal regulators. In April, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the name Autopilot could “mislead drivers into believing that the automation has greater capabilities than it actually does.” The agency’s comments came as it launched another investigation into the technology after concerns arose that a sweeping recall in December did not go far enough to address driver inattention.

Critics say Tesla’s marketing and the grandiose promises of Musk, who calls the assisted driving functions Full Self-Driving and Autopilot, Giving drivers a false sense of security when they take their eyes off the road or get behind the wheel after drinking. In the lawsuit filed by Bass, her lawyers argue that if the technology “had functioned properly, the vehicle would not have veered off the road, struck a tree, burst into flames, and Hans von Ohain’s gruesome and painful death would have been avoided.”

Attorney Michaels said the car was also defective because the fire was so intense when von Ohain hit the tree and eventually died. Sergeant Robert Madden of the Colorado State Patrol, who led the agency’s investigation into the accident, told the Washington Post in an interview that it was one of the “most intense” vehicle fires he had ever seen and that von Ohain would likely have survived the force of the accident on his own.

The lawsuit fails to mention that von Ohain had been drinking alcohol in the hours before the crash and died with a blood-alcohol level more than three times the legal limit in Colorado, according to an autopsy conducted by the Clear Creek County coroner’s office. The surviving passenger, Erik Rossiter, who had a similar blood-alcohol level after the crash, said von Ohain seemed composed and “not drunk at all” when they got into the Tesla and drove home after a day at the golf course. Michaels said he plans to challenge the validity of von Ohain’s toxicology readings in court.

Because of the intensity of the fire, state investigators were unable to access data from the car. Tesla told Colorado police it could not confirm whether a driver-assist system was in use because it “did not receive data over the air for this incident,” the state’s investigative report said.

Bass said in interviews that von Ohain had the Fully autonomous driving feature with his employee discount and used it nearly every time he got behind the wheel. She said the ride could be “jerky” and unreliable, but her husband thought Musk was a “brilliant man” and was passionate about training futuristic technology so it could one day revolutionize the way society moves. “We knew the technology needed to learn, and we were willing to be part of that,” she said.

Tesla owners have long complained about occasionally erratic behavior in their cars’ software, including sudden braking and missing lane markings. Rossiter, the passenger, told investigators and The Washington Post that on the morning of the crash, the car had trouble negotiating the mountain curves on the way to the golf course, forcing von Ohain to repeatedly steer it back on course.

Before representing Bass, Michaels brought one of the first major autopilot cases to a jury in Riverside, California last year, but Tesla ultimately prevailed.

In recent months, Tesla is showing renewed willingness to settle some litigation over alleged flaws in driver-assist technology, despite Musk vowing on Twitter in 2022 to “never settle an unjust case against us, even if we were likely to lose.” This year alone, the company has settled at least two wrongful death lawsuits.