Lawsuit says Tesla’s flawed Autopilot encouraged overreliance, ignored warnings, and failed to recognize a stopped motorcycle.
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The family of a 28-year-old man has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tesla yesterday after a Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Model S operating on autopilot failed to detect his stopped motorcycle, striking him from behind, pinning him to the ground, and killing him.
According to police reports, Jeffrey Nissen Jr. of Stanwood, Washington, was riding his motorcycle and stopped in traffic the evening of April 19, 2024, on State Route 522 in Snohomish County when the Tesla, driven by Snohomish resident Carl Hunter, slammed into him.
Police investigation reports detail that Hunter struck Nissen and, apparently unaware that he had hit him, continued forward, pinning him under the vehicle. Nissen was pronounced dead at the scene.
Hunter initially told 911 dispatch he was not sure how the collision happened, but police reports detail that he later admitted to investigators he was relying on Autopilot and may have been distracted, looking at his phone at the time of the collision. He was subsequently arrested for vehicular homicide and booked into the Snohomish County Jail.
According to police reports, upon exiting his vehicle and seeing Nissen pinned beneath the Tesla, Hunter stepped back and asked bystanders to “get him [Nissen] out from under my car.”
“Had the Tesla system worked as Elon Musk has touted for years, this collision would never have occurred,” said Simeon Osborn, managing partner of Osborn Machler & Neff, PLLC, and the attorney representing Nissen’s estate. “Put simply, Jeffrey is dead because Tesla continues to market a system that cannot do what the company claims.
Earlier this month, a California judge ruled that Tesla engaged in deceptive marketing by misleading customers about the capabilities of its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems and ordered the company to stop marketing the system as functional self-driving technology.
According to the complaint filed in Snohomish County Court, Tesla has long known that its Autopilot system struggles to identify motorcycles and other small vehicles. The lawsuit alleges the company overstated the system’s capabilities, understated its limitations, and encouraged drivers to trust the system in situations it cannot handle safely.
“By definition, Tesla built a system that invites distraction,” Osborn said. “Drivers think the car will handle more than it can, and the results are predictable and tragic.”
“Driver alarm fatigue occurs when people become desensitized to safety alerts due to excessive or inaccurate warnings,” said Eraka Bath, MD, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine. “Constant beeping from systems like lane departure or fatigue monitors can cause drivers to tune out or ignore these notifications, even when they signal genuine danger.”
She added that this phenomenon mirrors alarm fatigue in healthcare settings, where nurses become numb to frequent false alarms and may miss critical patient emergencies.
“Sensory overload undermines the very purpose of these warning systems; frustrated drivers may delay their responses, develop apathy toward the alerts, or disable them entirely, even though they’re designed to prevent serious incidents.”
The lawsuit cites evidence that Hunter disabled or ignored collision alerts before the crash, behavior that matches documented patterns of alarm fatigue.
“I don’t envy Tesla’s lawyers,” said Ryan Calo, who teaches tort law and law and technology at the University of Washington. “I wouldn’t want to appear in court and try to argue that it isn’t foreseeable for a consumer to rely on something called ‘Autopilot’ to drive itself.”
According to Nissen’s father, his son was devoted to his family and valued both work and time at home. His father, Jeffrey Nissen Sr., brought the lawsuit as personal representative of his late son’s estate.
“Jeffrey was the heart of our family. Losing him this way, under a car that should have stopped, is something we will never understand. He had his whole life ahead of him, and it was taken because a driver trusted a system that wasn’t safe.”
Osborn said the lawsuit seeks to hold Tesla responsible for selling what he sees as an unsafe vehicle and for grossly mischaracterizing what its Autopilot system can do.
“On occasion, the civil justice system gives us a chance to drive meaningful improvements in public safety, and we hope this lawsuit does exactly that,” Osborn said. “Tesla’s deeply flawed Autopilot system remains one of the worst-kept secrets in the industry, and by bringing tragic cases like Jeffrey’s into the open, we aim to force the company to take action.”
According to Osborn, the complaint also says Tesla failed to warn drivers about known hazards, misrepresented Autopilot’s capabilities, and ignored years of similar crashes and federal investigations.
Attorney Austin Neff, who also represents Nissen’s estate, added that Tesla’s public messaging and design choices encouraged drivers to disengage from the roadway even though the company knew Autopilot required constant driver supervision to operate safely.
Case information
The lawsuit was filed in Snohomish County Superior Court.
Case title: Estate of Jeffrey Nissen Jr. v. Tesla, Inc. and Carl Hunter
Case number: 26-2-00235-31
Contacts
Media contact
Mark Firmani
Juno Strategies
[email protected]
