A group of owners who were looking to form a class action lawsuit against Tesla over allegations that it misled the public about the capabilities of Autopilot will have to pursue claims in individual arbitration, not in court, a California judge has ruled.
The decision is an important one for Tesla, because it means that the owners cannot come together to form a class. As a result, they won’t be able to pool their resources against the automaker, giving it a big advantage.
U.S. district Judge Haywood Gilliam said in his decision that the Tesla owners who filed the proposed class action case last year had agreed to arbitrate any legal claims when they signed Tesla’s terms and conditions document while purchasing Autopilot through the automaker’s website, per Reuters. Although one plaintiff did not sign an arbitration agreement, the judge ruled that they had waited too long to sue.
Read: Shareholders Sue Elon Musk And Tesla For Fraud Over FSD Safety Claims
In their complaint, the owners alleged that Tesla had repeatedly made false statements about the abilities of its advanced driver assistance systems. They were particularly concerned that Tesla had repeatedly indicated that it was on the verge of delivering vehicles that were fully capable of driving on their own.
They all said that these promises helped convince them to shell out thousands of dollars to purchase additional features when they bought their vehicles. However, the plaintiffs allege that instead of delivering on those promises, Tesla’s technology has been involved in accidents, injuries, and deaths, due to its unreliable nature.
Although the owners were aware that they had signed agreements requiring arbitration, they claimed that this was unenforceable. In his decision, Judge Gilliam rejected this argument.
The decision comes as another lawsuit, this one alleging that Autopilot was an experimental technology that should not have been sold to the public, is kicking off. The case surrounds the driver of a Tesla Model 3 in California, whose vehicle veered off the road. The plaintiffs allege that Autopilot was to blame in that case.
