— Tesla has settled another wrongful death lawsuit before trial, this time in the case of Casey Speckman who was killed in a fiery Indianapolis crash on November 3, 2016, at about 1 a.m.
Very few details about the "conditional settlement" were released.
According to the lawsuit, Casey Speckman was driving the 2015 Tesla Model S while her work partner, Kevin McCarthy, was in the passenger seat. Both occupants were drunk when they were killed.
The Model S went off the right side of the road at high speed, hit a curb and slammed into a tree, coming to rest against a wall.
Casey Speckman, 27, was driving drunk with a blood-alcohol level of 0.21 percent, more than twice the Indiana legal limit of 0.08 percent. Passenger McCarthy, 44, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17 percent at the time of the crash.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs blamed Tesla for all aspects of the crash, including unintended acceleration that allegedly caused the crash. The lawsuit also alleges the automatic emergency braking system was defective, as were the battery and door handles.
According to Tesla, the Model S black box (event data recorder) shows the car suddenly accelerated from 10 mph to 70 mph in the five seconds before the car hit the curb. The recorder says Speckman pressed the accelerator pedal and didn't apply the brake pedal in the five seconds before the car hit the curb.
Witnesses to the crash said the Model S was traveling at a high rate of speed and erratically seconds before the crash.
Tesla blamed the crash on driving drunk, but the judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit by ruling Tesla couldn't prove the plaintiffs didn’t have evidence to refute Tesla's testimony about the crash.
The Casey Speckman wrongful death lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda.
Walter Huang Wrongful Death Lawsuit
This is the second wrongful death lawsuit Tesla has settled in less than two months, both before scheduled trials.
Walter Huang, 38, was playing a video game on his phone when his Tesla Model X slammed into a concrete highway median crash attenuator.
In that wrongful death lawsuit, Tesla argued data from the Model X showed Huang’s hands didn't touch the steering wheel for six seconds prior to the crash, and he took no evasive actions or applied the brakes to prevent the crash.
The Model X had Autopilot engaged at the time of the 71 mph crash.