Tesla Fails to Get Judge Recusal in Brake Defect Case (Correct)

A federal judge rejected Tesla Inc.'s request that he recuse himself from a case centered on alleged brake defects because the judge previously worked at a law firm that represented employees in suits against the company.

Reasonable people understand “that a law firm’s representation of a particular client does not impute everlasting partiality as to all parties adverse to that client,” Judge P. Casey Pitts of the US District Court for the Northern District of California said Tuesday. Pitts also denied Tesla’s request to transfer the case to Maryland and apply Maryland law.

Plaintiff Sylvia Jackson sued Tesla after a grocery store parking lot accident in Maryland. She said that while loading bags into her car, another individual driving a Tesla Model 3 stopped directly behind her car and waited. Without warning the car moved at 100% acceleration and trapped Jackson between the two vehicles, she said. The accident required amputation of both of her legs.

Jackson said three safety features, including the automatic emergency braking system, failed when the Model 3 accelerated towards her.

Tesla said Pitts should be disqualified from the case because the judge previously was a partner at Altshuler Berzon LLP, which represented two Tesla employees in discrimination cases against the company. But Pitts wasn’t part of those cases and his employment history was public knowledge in 2023, when Jackson’s case was transferred to him.

“Tesla nonetheless waited nearly seventeen months to file this motion,” he said.

In addition to the motion being untimely, the endpoint of Tesla’s argument would require federal judges to recuse themselves from any case in which a law firm colleague had been adverse to a party in a case before them, Pitts added.

“For judges who worked for firms much larger than Altshuler Berzon LLP that represent hundreds or thousands of clients at a time, the scope of this recusal obligation would be enormous, substantially disrupting the courts’ ability to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive resolution of court proceedings,” Pitts said.

Pitts also rejected Tesla’s argument that the case should be transferred to Maryland because that’s where the accident took place and where most relevant witnesses live.

“The location of these witnesses is of less relevance here” because “the evidence required to prove or defend against her products-liability claims will more likely relate to testimony detailing design and operation of Tesla’s safety features than to physical evidence or eye-witness testimony” related to the accident, Pitts said.

Pitts said that California and Maryland law conflict, but that California’s interests would be more impaired if Maryland’s law was applied.

“Tesla designed, engineered, manufactured, and sold the car in California and continues to update the Model 3 from its California offices,” Pitts said. “Because this case concerns an alleged defect in Tesla’s product, rather than a claim of negligence against the driver, Maryland has a more attenuated connection to” the defect claims, the judge added.

Jackson is represented by Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger and Jaime Jackson Law Firm PC.

Tesla is represented by Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP.

The case is Jackson v. Tesla Inc., N.D. Cal., No. 5:22-cv-04380, 3/25/25.