(Reuters) – Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle automaker, agreed to resolve an action for manslaughter filed by the lawyers of the estate of a man who died in 2021 after his Tesla hit and caught fire near Dayton, Ohio. Tesla and estate lawyers announced the agreement on Monday at the Federal Court of San Francisco, but did not reveal the terms.
The automaker and her lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comments. Todd Walburg, lawyer of the plaintiffs, declined to comment.
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Tesla denied any irregularity in the case, blaming the driver for the fatal accident. A jury trial was scheduled for April 2026.
The lawsuit of the estate states that Clyde Leach’s Tesla Model Y suddenly accelerated, left the road and hit a pillar at a gas station in Ohio. Leach, 72, died of head trauma, burns and other injuries.
“Tesla was aware that its vehicles – including the Model Y – hundreds of occasions suddenly accelerated and without explanation,” the process says.
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Tesla had stated that Leach’s model “was the state of generation and had no design defect or manufacturing”.
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Last year, Tesla resolved a lawsuit about a 2018 car accident that killed an Apple engineer after her Model X, operating on Autopilot, deflected from a highway near San Francisco. This agreement was made on the eve of the trial.
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Other lawsuits against Tesla are pending. In February, the company’s lawyers convinced a Florida appeal court to limit the damages that it could be forced to pay in a manslaughter case, accusing it of incorrectly informed the resources of the Autopilot system.
