(Reuters) -Tesla has settled a lawsuit over a car crash that killed an Apple (NASDAQ:) engineer in 2018 after his car skidded off a highway near San Francisco, court documents showed on Monday.
The settlement would help Tesla (NASDAQ:) avoid a lengthy jury trial over the role its Autopilot driver-assist technology may have played in the crash.
The case involves a car accident that killed Walter Huang. Tesla had argued that Huang had abused the system because he was playing a video game shortly before the accident.
Huang’s family had claimed that Autopilot drove his 2017 Model X into a highway barrier. Lawyers for Huang’s family had also raised questions about whether Tesla was aware that drivers likely would not or could not use the system as directed, and what measures the automaker had taken to protect them.
The crash that killed Huang was among hundreds of U.S. crashes in which Autopilot was a suspected factor in reports to auto safety regulators.
The Autopilot system can steer, accelerate and brake on its own on the road but cannot completely replace the human driver, especially in city driving. Tesla materials explaining the system warn that it does not make the car autonomous and requires a “fully attentive driver” who can “take command at any time.”