Family of teen killed in Tesla crash sues manufacturer

The family of an 18-year-old boy killed in an explosive Tesla crash last year has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the car manufacturer and one of its Broward County employees, claiming the car was defective and a worker negligently disabled a device installed to limit the vehicle’s speed.

The crash of the 2014 Tesla Model S sedan likely wouldn’t have happened if a worker at a local service center had not removed a device the teen driver’s parents had installed on the luxury car to prevent it from going faster than 85 mph, the lawsuit filed on behalf of the estate of Edgar Monserratt Martinez said.

Martinez, of Aventura, was the front-seat passenger when the Tesla driven by his classmate, Barrett Riley, traveled at 116 mph, lost control on a curve, careened into a concrete wall on Seabreeze Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale and burst into flames.

Martinez and Riley, 18, died at the scene. The medical examiner identified the young men by their dental records.

When the high school seniors died on May 8, they were just weeks away from graduation at Pine Crest, a private Fort Lauderdale school.

After Riley was clocked at 112 mph and ticketed while driving his father’s Tesla a couple months earlier, his parents had the car manufacturer install a device that would limit its top speed to 85 mph, according to the lawsuit.

But when the car was taken in for maintenance at a local service center about a month before the fatal crash, employee James Constantino removed the device without telling the Rileys, the suit said.

If they had know, the suit said, “they would not have permitted their son, Barrett Riley, to operate the vehicle.”

If the device hadn’t been removed, Riley wouldn’t have been speeding, wouldn’t have lost control, wouldn’t have crashed and neither he nor Martinez would

have died, the lawsuit claims.

Filed in Broward Circuit Court on Tuesday, the suit also alleges that the electric luxury car had an unsafe, defective battery prone to catching fire, intensely and uncontrollably.

“The batteries have been causing problems in Teslas all over the world,” said lawyer Philip Corboy Jr. “This has been a long ongoing problem with Tesla cars.”

The Chicago law firm, Corboy & Demetrio, has partnered with the Schlesinger Law Offices in Fort Lauderdale to litigate the case. The suit seeks monetary damages for negligence and demands a jury trial.

“Our thoughts continue to be with the families affected by this tragedy,” a spokeswoman for Tesla said in an emailed statement. “Unfortunately, no car could have withstood a high-speed crash of this kind.”

Last year, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company introduced a speed-limiting feature “in dedication to our customer’s son, Barrett Riley, who tragically passed away in the accident,” she said.

After graduation, Martinez was scheduled to attend Babson College in Boston, a private business school that focuses on entrepreneurship, Corboy said.

“By all accounts, he was an adorable young kid getting ready to make his mark on society when this tragedy occurred.”