Tesla settles wrongful death lawsuit claiming sudden acceleration in Ohio crash

By Mike Scarcella

April 21, 2025 – 1:53 PM PDT

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REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/File Photo

(Reuters) – Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla (TSLA.O) has agreed to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the estate of a man who was killed in 2021 after his Tesla crashed and caught fire near Dayton, Ohio.

Tesla and lawyers for the estate disclosed the settlement in a filing on Monday in federal court in San Francisco but did not reveal its terms.

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The carmaker and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Todd Walburg, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, declined to comment.

Tesla has denied any wrongdoing in the case, blaming the driver for the fatal crash. A jury trial had been scheduled for April 2026.

The estate’s lawsuit said Clyde Leach’s Tesla Model Y suddenly accelerated, went off the road and slammed into a pillar at an Ohio gas station. Leach, 72, died from blunt force trauma, burns and other injuries.

“Tesla was aware that its vehicles — including the Model Y — have reportedly on hundreds of occasions accelerated suddenly and without explanation,” the lawsuit said.

Tesla had asserted that Leach’s model “was state-of-the-art and was not defective in design or manufacture.”

Last year, Tesla settled a lawsuit over a 2018 car crash that killed an Apple (AAPL.O) engineer after his Model X, operating on Autopilot, swerved off a highway near San Francisco. That settlement was made on the eve of trial.

Other lawsuits against Tesla are pending. In February, lawyers for the company convinced a Florida appeals court to limit the damages it could be forced to pay in a wrongful death lawsuit accusing it of misstating the capabilities of the Autopilot system.

^{Reporting by Mike Scarcella in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis}

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