The family of a woman who died after a Tesla crashed into her Houston-area home filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the electric car company as well as the driver — who reportedly told authorities the vehicle was in autopilot mode — according to the law firm hired by the family.
Houston-based Zehl & Associates filed the wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of Jennifer Barbour and Justin Barbour, the daughter and son-in-law of Martha Avila, 76, who died after the Tesla crashed into her Katy home on Friday night. The law firm had announced on Monday that it was hired by the family and planned to file the lawsuit.
The crash occurred in the 21300 block of Rose Hollow Lane, according to a social media post by the Harris County Precinct 5 Constable's Office. The driver told authorities he was using Tesla's autopilot mode at the time of the crash, according to the constable's office.
Tesla, the Austin-based company founded by technology mogul Elon Musk, did not respond to a request for comment regarding the crash. The driver, identified by authorities and the lawsuit as Michael Butler, could not immediately be reached for comment.
In a post on the social media platform he owns, Musk said the incident “makes no sense.”
“FSD [full self-driving] drives slowly through neighborhood streets and this was a high-speed crash!”
Yes, this makes no sense. FSD drives slowly through neighborhood streets and this was a high speed crash!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 22, 2026
Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of AI software at Tesla, responded to a post by Musk and claimed the driver manually overrode the self-driving functionality.
“In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area,” Elluswamy wrote on social media. “They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.”
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Butler was using a Tesla Model 3, according to authorities. Its autopilot features require human supervision and driver attentiveness as a safety precaution, according to the company. The vehicle operates at an automation level at which the driver is “fully responsible for driving the vehicle while system provides continuous assistance with both acceleration/braking AND steering,” according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The NHTSA has opened a special investigation into the crash.
Nikolas Guggenberger, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, said Tuesday on Houston Matters that liability gradually shifts from the driver to the company as the car behaves more autonomously.
"Most likely, the driver is still considered to be the operator of the vehicle," Guggenberger said. "Therefore [the driver] can be liable for anything that happens during the operation of the vehicle."
The lawsuit against Tesla could still hold if there is a product or manufacturing liability, Guggenberger said. Avila’s family alleges there could have been a design defect in the vehicle.
The NHTSA, an auto safety regulator, has launched several investigations into Tesla, including one late last year into 58 incidents in which Teslas reportedly violated traffic safety laws while using self-driving technology, leading to more than a dozen crashes and fires and nearly two dozen injuries. A few months earlier, the NHTSA opened an investigation into why Tesla apparently had not been reporting crashes promptly as required.
As for special crash investigations, the NHTSA has opened 46 involving Teslas using self-driving or driver-assistance technology over the past decade, according to the agency’s records. In more than a dozen of those crashes, at least one person — a driver, passenger or pedestrian — was killed.
Avila was injured in the Houston-area crash Friday night and flown to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office.
The sheriff's office, in a news release about the crash involving a Tesla Model 3, said Butler “stated he was operating with an automated driving assistance system engaged at the time of the crash." The man “failed to drive in a single lane, left the roadway, and struck the residence,” according to the sheriff’s office, who also said the man showed “no signs of intoxication” and was cooperative with responding authorities.
Butler has not been charged with any crimes related to the crash, according to online court and jail records. He also was taken to a hospital after the crash, authorities said.
A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said evidence gathered during an ongoing investigation into the crash “will be presented to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to determine whether charges are appropriate.”
A GoFundMe page set up for Avila’s family had raised more than $27,000 as of Monday. According to the account, Avila was at a relative’s home at the time of the crash, and the home has since become "uninhabitable" due to the damage and ongoing investigation.
Houston Public Media’s Sonia Kinyua and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on June 23, 2026, to include comments from Elon Musk and a Tesla employee, and again on June 24, 2026, to reflect that a lawsuit had been filed.
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