California
Tesla settles lawsuit over man’s death in a crash involving its semi-autonomous driving software
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Tesla has settled a lawsuit brought by the family of a Silicon Valley engineer who died in a crash while relying on the company’s semi-autonomous driving software.
The amount Tesla paid to settle the case was not disclosed in court documents filed Monday, just a day before the trial stemming from the 2018 crash on a San Francisco Bay Area highway was scheduled to begin. In a court filing requesting to keep the sum private, Tesla said it agreed to settle the case in order to “end years of litigation.”
Shares of Tesla Inc., down 30% this year, slipped 1% before the market opened Tuesday.
The family of Walter Huang filed a negligence and wrongful death lawsuit in 2019 seeking to hold Tesla — and, by extension, its CEO Elon Musk — liable for repeatedly exaggerating the capabilities of Tesla’s self-driving car technology. They claimed the technology, dubbed Autopilot, was promoted in egregious ways that caused vehicle owners to believe they didn’t have to remain vigilant while they were behind the wheel.
Evidence indicated that Huang was playing a video game on his iPhone when he crashed into a concrete highway barrier on March 23, 2018.
After dropping his son off at preschool, Huang activated the Autopilot feature on his Model X for his commute to his job at Apple. But less than 20 minutes later, Autopilot veered the vehicle out of its lane and began to accelerate before barreling into a barrier located at a perilous intersection on a busy highway in Mountain View, California. The Model X was still traveling at more than 70 miles per hour (110 kilometers per hour).
Huang, 38, died at the gruesome scene, leaving behind his wife and two children, now 12 and 9 years old.
The case was just one of about a dozen scattered across the U.S. raising questions about whether Musk’s boasts about the effectiveness of Tesla’s autonomous technology fosters a misguided faith the technology, The company also has an optional feature it calls Full Self Driving.
The U.S. Justice Department also opened an inquiry last year into how Tesla and Musk promote its autonomous technology, according to regulatory filings that didn’t provide many details about the nature of the probe.
Tesla, which is based in Austin, Texas, prevailed last year in a Southern California trial focused on whether misperceptions about Tesla’s Autopilot feature contributed to a driver in a 2019 crash involving one of the company’s cars.
Washington
State ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines ruled unconstitutional, but state appeals
SEATTLE (AP) — A judge in Washington state ruled Monday that the state’s ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines is unconstitutional — but the law will remain in effect while the state appeals the decision.
Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Gary Bashor ruled that Washington’s ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds violates both the Washington state and U.S. constitutions, The Seattle Times reported. He issued an immediate injunction to stop the state from enforcing the ban, which has been in place since 2022.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed an emergency appeal to the state Supreme Court seeking to keep the law in effect during the appeals process. That was granted Monday evening and the ban will stay in place for now.
In granting the emergency appeal, Washington State Supreme Court commissioner Michael Johnston wrote that he considered “the debatable nature of the factual and legal issues raised in this case, and the public safety issues concerning the proliferation of large capacity magazines.”
Bashor in his ruling referred to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in which gun regulations must be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The Supreme Court’s so-called Bruen decision changed the test that lower courts had used for years to evaluate challenges to firearm restrictions. The justices said judges should no longer consider whether the law serves public interests like enhancing public safety.
Bashor wrote that the state needed to show a historical law, from around the time of the Second Amendment’s adoption, that justifies its current regulation. He said the state had failed to do so.
“There was no appetite to limit gun rights by the Founders. Though the specific technology available today may not have been envisioned, the Founders expected technological advancements,” Bashor wrote. “The result is few, if any, historical analogue laws by which a state can justify a modern firearms regulation.”
In arguments and motions, the state said “the enduring tradition of firearms regulation” satisfies the requirements of Bruen and justifies the ban. The state also argued that gun violence and mass shootings are “an unprecedented societal concern,” but Bashor brushed that argument aside.
The 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech was “widely publicized,” Bashor wrote, and yet the U.S. Supreme Court broadened Second Amendment protections the next year.
“The Washington legislature has found that gun violence and mass shootings are on the increase,” Bashor wrote. “The problem, however, is not an unprecedented societal concern.”
Ferguson issued a statement calling the decision incorrect.
“Every court in Washington and across the country to consider challenges to a ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines under the U.S. or Washington Constitution has either rejected that challenge or been overruled. This law is constitutional,” he said.
The decision comes in relation to a lawsuit Ferguson filed against Gator’s Guns, based in the small city of Kelso, for selling high-capacity magazines after the ban went into effect. A person who answered the phone at the gun shop Monday evening said the owner declined to comment at this time.
Earlier this year, a Federal Way gun shop and its owner, agreed to pay $3 million for violating the ban after they were sued by Ferguson.
In his emergency motion, Ferguson wrote that even a temporary pause in the law’s enforcement would likely “unleash a flood” of high-capacity magazines in Washington.
Since July 2022, it has been illegal under Washington state law to manufacture, distribute, sell or offer for sale gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, with limited exceptions. The bill’s backers said at the time the law could reduce the carnage seen in mass shootings because people could have the chance to escape or stop a shooter in the time it takes to reload the weapon.
New Jersey
County prosecutor resigns amid misconduct probe, denies any wrongdoing
The top prosecutor in a northwestern New Jersey county has resigned amid a state probe into allegations that the office lied about caseloads to pad its budget with state money meant for fraud investigations.
James Pfeiffer, who had been the Warren County prosecutor since 2019, resigned Friday “effective immediately,” state Attorney General Matthew Platkin said. Anthony Picione, deputy director of the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability in the state’s Division of Criminal Justice, was appointed as acting county prosecutor, Platkin said.
“I do not take such action lightly, but I am confident that this change in leadership will ensure that the Warren County Prosecutor’s Office operates with professionalism and fosters an environment in which reports of misconduct are taken seriously and reviewed appropriately,” Platkin said in a statement announcing the change
A 22-page report released Monday night by Platkin’s office outlined an inquiry that began in 2022 when whistleblowers claimed the prosecutor’s office was misusing grant funding from the state Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor. It also alleges that Pfeiffer didn’t cooperate with the probe and potentially intimidated witnesses.
A telephone number for Pfeiffer could not be located Tuesday. In a statement to WFMZ-TV, he called the report inaccurate and denied any wrongdoing. He said he couldn’t immediately respond to the allegations because the attorney general’s office did not give him a complete report, but said he would respond in the near future.
The report cites several secret recordings of a staffer who handled insurance fraud cases for the prosecutor’s office. According to the report, the staffer alleged that the office was reimbursed for work on investigations it never actually did.
Tesla settles lawsuit over man’s death in a crash involving its semi-autonomous driving software
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Tesla has settled a lawsuit brought by the family of a Silicon Valley engineer who died in a crash while relying on the company’s semi-autonomous driving software.
The amount Tesla paid to settle the case was not disclosed in court documents filed Monday, just a day before the trial stemming from the 2018 crash on a San Francisco Bay Area highway was scheduled to begin. In a court filing requesting to keep the sum private, Tesla said it agreed to settle the case in order to “end years of litigation.”
Shares of Tesla Inc., down 30% this year, slipped 1% before the market opened Tuesday.
The family of Walter Huang filed a negligence and wrongful death lawsuit in 2019 seeking to hold Tesla — and, by extension, its CEO Elon Musk — liable for repeatedly exaggerating the capabilities of Tesla’s self-driving car technology. They claimed the technology, dubbed Autopilot, was promoted in egregious ways that caused vehicle owners to believe they didn’t have to remain vigilant while they were behind the wheel.
Evidence indicated that Huang was playing a video game on his iPhone when he crashed into a concrete highway barrier on March 23, 2018.
After dropping his son off at preschool, Huang activated the Autopilot feature on his Model X for his commute to his job at Apple. But less than 20 minutes later, Autopilot veered the vehicle out of its lane and began to accelerate before barreling into a barrier located at a perilous intersection on a busy highway in Mountain View, California. The Model X was still traveling at more than 70 miles per hour (110 kilometers per hour).
Huang, 38, died at the gruesome scene, leaving behind his wife and two children, now 12 and 9 years old.
The case was just one of about a dozen scattered across the U.S. raising questions about whether Musk’s boasts about the effectiveness of Tesla’s autonomous technology fosters a misguided faith the technology, The company also has an optional feature it calls Full Self Driving.
The U.S. Justice Department also opened an inquiry last year into how Tesla and Musk promote its autonomous technology, according to regulatory filings that didn’t provide many details about the nature of the probe.
Tesla, which is based in Austin, Texas, prevailed last year in a Southern California trial focused on whether misperceptions about Tesla’s Autopilot feature contributed to a driver in a 2019 crash involving one of the company’s cars.
Washington
State ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines ruled unconstitutional, but state appeals
SEATTLE (AP) — A judge in Washington state ruled Monday that the state’s ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines is unconstitutional — but the law will remain in effect while the state appeals the decision.
Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Gary Bashor ruled that Washington’s ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds violates both the Washington state and U.S. constitutions, The Seattle Times reported. He issued an immediate injunction to stop the state from enforcing the ban, which has been in place since 2022.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed an emergency appeal to the state Supreme Court seeking to keep the law in effect during the appeals process. That was granted Monday evening and the ban will stay in place for now.
In granting the emergency appeal, Washington State Supreme Court commissioner Michael Johnston wrote that he considered “the debatable nature of the factual and legal issues raised in this case, and the public safety issues concerning the proliferation of large capacity magazines.”
Bashor in his ruling referred to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in which gun regulations must be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The Supreme Court’s so-called Bruen decision changed the test that lower courts had used for years to evaluate challenges to firearm restrictions. The justices said judges should no longer consider whether the law serves public interests like enhancing public safety.
Bashor wrote that the state needed to show a historical law, from around the time of the Second Amendment’s adoption, that justifies its current regulation. He said the state had failed to do so.
“There was no appetite to limit gun rights by the Founders. Though the specific technology available today may not have been envisioned, the Founders expected technological advancements,” Bashor wrote. “The result is few, if any, historical analogue laws by which a state can justify a modern firearms regulation.”
In arguments and motions, the state said “the enduring tradition of firearms regulation” satisfies the requirements of Bruen and justifies the ban. The state also argued that gun violence and mass shootings are “an unprecedented societal concern,” but Bashor brushed that argument aside.
The 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech was “widely publicized,” Bashor wrote, and yet the U.S. Supreme Court broadened Second Amendment protections the next year.
“The Washington legislature has found that gun violence and mass shootings are on the increase,” Bashor wrote. “The problem, however, is not an unprecedented societal concern.”
Ferguson issued a statement calling the decision incorrect.
“Every court in Washington and across the country to consider challenges to a ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines under the U.S. or Washington Constitution has either rejected that challenge or been overruled. This law is constitutional,” he said.
The decision comes in relation to a lawsuit Ferguson filed against Gator’s Guns, based in the small city of Kelso, for selling high-capacity magazines after the ban went into effect. A person who answered the phone at the gun shop Monday evening said the owner declined to comment at this time.
Earlier this year, a Federal Way gun shop and its owner, agreed to pay $3 million for violating the ban after they were sued by Ferguson.
In his emergency motion, Ferguson wrote that even a temporary pause in the law’s enforcement would likely “unleash a flood” of high-capacity magazines in Washington.
Since July 2022, it has been illegal under Washington state law to manufacture, distribute, sell or offer for sale gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, with limited exceptions. The bill’s backers said at the time the law could reduce the carnage seen in mass shootings because people could have the chance to escape or stop a shooter in the time it takes to reload the weapon.
New Jersey
County prosecutor resigns amid misconduct probe, denies any wrongdoing
The top prosecutor in a northwestern New Jersey county has resigned amid a state probe into allegations that the office lied about caseloads to pad its budget with state money meant for fraud investigations.
James Pfeiffer, who had been the Warren County prosecutor since 2019, resigned Friday “effective immediately,” state Attorney General Matthew Platkin said. Anthony Picione, deputy director of the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability in the state’s Division of Criminal Justice, was appointed as acting county prosecutor, Platkin said.
“I do not take such action lightly, but I am confident that this change in leadership will ensure that the Warren County Prosecutor’s Office operates with professionalism and fosters an environment in which reports of misconduct are taken seriously and reviewed appropriately,” Platkin said in a statement announcing the change
A 22-page report released Monday night by Platkin’s office outlined an inquiry that began in 2022 when whistleblowers claimed the prosecutor’s office was misusing grant funding from the state Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor. It also alleges that Pfeiffer didn’t cooperate with the probe and potentially intimidated witnesses.
A telephone number for Pfeiffer could not be located Tuesday. In a statement to WFMZ-TV, he called the report inaccurate and denied any wrongdoing. He said he couldn’t immediately respond to the allegations because the attorney general’s office did not give him a complete report, but said he would respond in the near future.
The report cites several secret recordings of a staffer who handled insurance fraud cases for the prosecutor’s office. According to the report, the staffer alleged that the office was reimbursed for work on investigations it never actually did.
Georgia
Former Atlanta CFO pleads guilty to stealing money from city for trips and machine guns
ATLANTA (AP) — The former chief financial officer for Atlanta pleaded guilty on Monday to stealing money from the city for personal travel and guns and trying to cheat the federal government on his income taxes.
Jim Beard, 60, pleaded guilty to one count of federal program theft and one count of tax obstruction in federal court in Atlanta.
U.S. District Judge Steve Jones is scheduled to sentence Beard on July 12. Beard could face as many as 13 years in prison but is likely to be sentenced to substantially less under federal guidelines.
Beard served as the city’s chief financial officer under Mayor Kasim Reed, managing Atlanta’s financial resources from 2011 to 2018. Beard is the 10th person to be convicted in an anti-corruption probe into Reed’s administration. Most of the others were convicted on charges of giving or taking bribes for city contracts. Reed himself has never been charged.
During his time in office, Beard used city money to pay for personal trips and to illegally buy two machine guns for himself, he admitted in his plea agreement.
Federal prosecutors said Beard stole tens of thousands of dollars from the city, although the plea outlined about $5,500 in thefts.
That includes spending over $1,200 for his stepdaughter to spend three nights in a Chicago hotel room during an August 2015 music festival. Beard said he was there to discuss interest rates on city debt.
Beard also admitted to buying two custom-made machine guns from Georgia manufacturer Daniel Defense in 2015, paying $2,641.90 with a city check. Beard had claimed the guns were for the Atlanta Police Department — it’s generally illegal for civilians to possess machine guns in the United States — but he kept them until he left them in 2017 at the police department office overseeing the mayor’s protection.
He also spent $648 on airfare to New Orleans to attend the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in April 2016, later deducting the same expense from his income taxes by telling the IRS it was for his personal consulting business. Beard also double-dipped by charging the city nearly $1,000 in travel expenses to a New York meeting with a bond regulatory agency and then getting the same agency to reimburse him $1,276.52.
Beard also claimed $33,000 in losses from his consulting business on his 2013 income tax return, with the IRS ultimately allowing him to deduct $12,000 in business travel expenses he never spent.
Under the plea, Beard is giving up his claim to the guns and is agreeing to pay back various entities including the city of Atlanta.
