A second lawsuit has been filed regarding the Cybertruck crash in Piedmont that killed three former Piedmont High School students.
The family of Jack Nelson filed suit in Alameda County Superior Court on Oct. 2. The suit names both Tesla as well as the estates of Soren Dixon (who was driving the Cybertruck at the time of the crash) and Charles Patterson (Dixon’s grandfather, who owned the Cybertruck and has since passed).
The Nelsons said in a statement that they were required to name the two estates but “do not seek to punish any families.”
“Todd and Stannye Nelson have filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court to hold Tesla accountable for dangerous design choices that turned a survivable crash into a fatal fire that killed their son, Jack,” the statement said.
The claim is similar to the amended claim filed by the family of Krysta Tsukahara that added Tesla as a defendant. That complaint was filed the day before the Nelson suit. The Tsukahara suit had previously named the estates of Dixon and Patterson as defendants. Both suits claim Tesla was negligent in the design and crash worthiness of the Cybertruck as well as the ability of the victims to escape the crash due to the design of the door handles.
The Nelson family lawsuit notes that the Alameda County autopsy reported that none of the three victims (Nelson, Tsukahara and Dixon) were killed by the impacts of the crash. Rather, they were killed by asphyxia and smoke inhalation.
“Postmortem toxicology showed a carboxyhemoglobin level of 49 percent, meaning nearly half of his blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity was displaced by carbon monoxide,” the suit reads. “In short, Jack Nelson survived the crash; he died because Tesla’s design of the Cybertruck left him unable to escape.”
The suit details how the door handles in a Cybertruck are designed, with the exterior “handle” actually a button flat to the door and controlled electronically by a battery that can fail after a crash. Further, the doors and windows are designed to be impenetrable. The electronic door handles inside the vehicle can also fail when the battery power cuts, according to the suit.
That leaves a manual release that is not located on the door rest in the back seat. Instead, it is a pull cord concealed within a map pocket at the bottom of the door.
“To use it, a trapped passenger would have to peel back the liner, locate the loop, and pull it forward — an obscure and impractical maneuver in an emergency,” the suit reads.
“As it relates to Tesla, there’s two theories,” Nelson family attorney Andrew McDevitt said. “One is in this type of a crash, is this a crash where an electric vehicle should be designed so it won’t catch on fire. Two, if it does catch on fire, you should not have a circumstance where they are not killed by the crash but are killed because they can’t get out of the vehicle.”
Other Tesla models have similar setups, McDevitt said. He said the manual release in the back of the Model X is behind a speaker grill.
The crash occurred just after 3 a.m. on November 27, 2024. Four people were in the vehicle and a witness was able to smash the front passenger side window with a large piece of a tree and pull a fourth passenger from the burning car. That process took multiple hits and the rescuer was unable to get to the other people in the Cybertruck.
Toxicology reports showed alcohol and cocaine in the systems of all three victims.
When asked if Tesla would try to claim that the driver’s impairment was to blame for the crash, McDevitt said, “Of course they’re going to say that. Assume all the other facts are the same. The bottom line is you still have a crash where the occupants in the rear seat are alive and we have proof that one of them was trying to get out. Those people should not die because they can’t get out because of the way the vehicle was designed.”
The California Highway Patrol accident report said the vehicle was speeding before it jumped a curb and hit a tree and a wall on Hampton Road and King Avenue. Dixon’s grandfather, Charles Patterson, who is now also deceased, owned the vehicle.
It’s unknown how long it will take before the case goes to trial. McDevitt said it could take years for the process to complete.
Tesla did not respond to an email asking for comment on the cases.