Harcourt v. Tesla (March 4, 2026, No. H052308) 2026 WL 890532
A two year old toddler climbed into a Tesla Model X, which plaintiff, the toddler’s mother, had left parked with the doors open and key fob inside. The toddler drove the car into plaintiff, causing leg and pelvis injuries. Plaintiff sued for strict product liability under the consumer expectations test, claiming that the car did not perform as an ordinary consumer expected it to because a two-year-old managed to operate it. The trial court granted a nonsuit and plaintiff appealed.
The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that the consumer expectations test did not apply because plaintiff also failed to show that the car’s design performed below “legitimate, commonly accepted, minimal safety assumptions of its ordinary consumers.” Plaintiff failed to identify objective features that were defective or missing. The court rejected plaintiff’s argument that consumers reasonably expect toddlers to be unable to operate passenger vehicles because unexpected injury alone is insufficient to satisfy the consumer expectations test.
The Court of Appeal’s decision was initially unpublished and therefore not citeable, but the court ordered its decision to be published after receiving requests from both Horvitz & Levy and the Product Liability Advisory Council (PLAC).
