This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Unfortunately even an astronomical sum like this is still in "slap on the wrist" territory for a company that size. This is for a single incident, though, not class action. So it could be a valuable precedent in actually forcing them to act more responsibly for fear of more meaningful consequences.
Building on what you said, I think that the sum is actually pretty significant if you think of it as being roughly $100 million per person, and then multiply by the number of people hurt by the supposed "Autopilot" who now have incentive to sue.
people hurt by the supposed "Autopilot"
I thought these cases were all regarding incidents with the FSD package and not autopilot? The autopilot (in Tesla) is just TACC and lane-assist, the "advanced" autonomous features that actually steer the car is all in FSD.
Ah, I was not paying much attention to the distinction; my bad, then.
Nice.
Musk = POS Nazi.
I don’t even care if the autopilot was at fault or not in this case. I’m just here to say fuck that guy!
Indeed
Wow! That sounds like TRILLION DOLLAR Behavior!
What's the point of such court cases when the loser can simply appeal and appeal and appeal? It's a stupid system.
Edit: typo.
Appeals aren’t an infinite thing. Each appeal goes to a higher court, and eventually will reach the SCOTUS. And at any point, the respective appellate court can refuse to accept the appeal, essentially saying that they agree with the lower court’s ruling and leaving it in effect.
Each step of the appeals process basically asks if the lower court applied the corresponding laws correctly. And if they did, the appellate court looks at whether or not that law is constitutional. If both are true, (the law is constitutional and was applied correctly) then the appeal fails. Appeals are actually fairly hard to win, especially for laws that have lots of precedent. If a law already has lots of precedent and the lower court was simply applying the law the same way that other cases did, the appeal will almost certainly be shot down.
That’s why lots of the big landmark “court strikes down law as unconstitutional” cases are from laws that were recently passed. There is no long-standing precedent for the recently passed law, so the lower courts have to set the precedent, and the appeal is actually what is deciding whether or not the law is constitutional.
There are limits to appeals. Each appeal up the chain requires that court to agree to hear the challenge of the appeal. Depending on the jurisdicion, I think the limit would be only 3 or 4 appeals with that last one being the Supreme Court of the United States. If the next higher court declines to hear the appeal, the lower courts ruling stands.
You can appeal - but appeals are rarely agreed to. An appeal isn't about the facts in most cases - it is about was the law correctly applied and if so is the law constitutional.
