Tesla has been struck with a lawsuit alleging that a 2021 Model 3 was defective, which caused the death of 14-year-old Karter Breon Smith and his father, Margarrett Breon Smith. The lawsuit has been filed by Margarrett’s ex-wife in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
The 35-year-old driver crashed his Tesla Model 3 on Highway 35 in Thomas County, Georgia, on December 23, 2024. Sitting in the passenger seat was his son, Karter, whose mother, Shantorria Herring, the plaintiff, filed the lawsuit.
According to a Georgia State Patrol crash report, the Model 3 went off the road and straight into a pecan orchard, where it crashed head-on into a tree. The car then immediately caught fire, killing both the driver and the passenger on the spot.
Herring told Tallahassee.com after the incident that the father likely dozed off while driving, which led to the crash. She said:
“They were asleep when it happened. And it was instant.”
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Now, Herring alleges that several defects on the Tesla Model 3 did not prevent the crash from happening, else it would have saved her son. Carcomplaints.com reported a statement from the lawsuit that listed the Model 3 features that reportedly failed:
“[F]ailed to activate or did not correctly operate to maintain the subject Tesla Model 3 within its lane of travel, failed to detect that the vehicle was departing its lane, did not steer the vehicle back into the driving lane, did not apply corrective steering to keep the vehicle in its intended lane, failed to detect and warn of the stationary object in the path of the vehicle (a tree), caused or failed to reduce the risk of unintended acceleration or failed to activate the brakes to bring the vehicle to a stop, and/or failed to provide audible warnings and autonomous emergency braking to stop the vehicle and prevent it from crashing into the tree.”
In addition, the lawsuit states that the “‘Accelerator Pedal (%)’ went from 0.0 (with a speed of 63 mph) to 100.0 without any significant change in vehicle speed and without any reported ‘Service Brake’ recording.”
The plaintiff alleged that several safety features in the Model 3 failed to prevent the vehicle from going off the road. The lawsuit read:
“Autopilot” and/or “self-driving“ features were defective and failed, which caused the Model 3 to leave the highway and crash. She argues the lane departure, auto-steer, and automatic emergency braking features “were either defectively designed or malfunctioned.”
Not only that, the lawsuit claims that the Model 3’s door handles were defective, likely because they didn’t open after the crash. The plaintiff also alleged that the vehicle’s lithium-ion battery pack was defective, since it caught fire after the crash.
