Widow of designer who died in fiery Tesla crash sues automaker claiming car had ‘defective design'
The family of a man who died when his Tesla crashed into another car and burst into flames is blaming the automaker for the blaze, and accusing the company of knowingly foisting 'defective' and 'unreasonably dangerous' vehicles on an unsuspecting public.
Marketing and design executive Heath Miller, 47, was behind the wheel of his new Tesla Model Y in February 2023 when it collided with an oncoming SUV on Long Island's North Fork. The compact electric crossover's lithium-ion battery immediately caught fire, burning for more than two hours at a temperature that reached an estimated 4,000 degrees, according to authorities.
Miller was unable to flee the devastating inferno, which was so intense, it kept first responders from getting close enough to save him or his passenger, 55-year-old William Price, Southold Police Chief Martin Flatley told local reporters at the time. The two people in the SUV, physicians Peter Smith, 80, and Patricia O'Neill, 66, were also killed.
'Usually, with gas engines, they are a lot easier to put out either with water or chemicals,' Flatley said. 'But this fire burned pretty hard and pretty intense.'
In a gut-wrenching wrongful death lawsuit filed over the weekend and obtained by The Independent, Miller's widow, Sarah-Mai Miller, says Tesla, whose CEO, Elon Musk, is the richest man on Earth, 'is aware that its vehicles are subject to a phenomenon known as thermal runaway in which its vehicles burst into flames after an impact.'
'While Tesla touts its vehicles as being less prone to catch fire than vehicles with internal combustion engines, they fail to alert consumers that once ignited, its vehicles burn much hotter and longer, making it often impossible for occupants to escape a burning vehicle or for first responders to render aid,' Mai-Miller's complaint contends. 'In this instance, the Tesla… vehicle burst into flames destroying any hope of escape or rescue.'
Sarah-Mai and Heath Miller were not only husband and wife, but partners in Chalk 242, an integrated branding agency with offices in Manhattan, Chicago, and Sarasota, Florida.
The complaint points to the fire's 'severe intrusion into the passenger compartment,' blaming it on 'the defective design and manufacture of the vehicle,' which allegedly 'lacked adequate and proper occupant protection.'
Tesla attorneys and company officials did not respond on Tuesday to The Independent 's requests for comment.
The world's largest electric carmaker has come under criticism in recent years for allegedly ignoring safety concerns brought to its attention by regulators and grieving relatives alike.
The wife of a New Jersey man whose Tesla Model 3 slammed into a tree and exploded sued the company in 2023, claiming her husband survived the crash but died in the raging battery fire that engulfed the car in the moments following.
A few years earlier, an Indianapolis woman sued Tesla after her husband, a former FBI agent, was unable to escape his Tesla Model S when it caught fire following an accident, instantly incinerating him. The vehicle's lithium ion battery cells at one point began shooting fiery 'projectiles' at first responders, preventing firefighters from attempting a rescue, according to court filings.
And when a Tesla Model 3 driven by a Marine Corps reservist in Colorado went up in flames after striking a tree, the new father couldn't get out and died in the blaze, his widow alleged in a lawsuit filed last year.
All blamed poor design by Tesla for causing their husbands' deaths.
Sarah-Mai Miller's new lawsuit takes Tesla to task for its contention that the Model Y is 'designed to 'exceed safety standards,'' calling out various features for allegedly failing to work as advertised.
On top of the battery issue, Miller's complaint — which suggests, but does not explicitly say, the Model Y was in self-driving mode at the time of the deadly collision — slams Tesla for overselling its camera-based 'Autosteer,' 'Autopilot,' and 'Obstacle Aware Acceleration' systems, claiming the car should have automatically applied the brakes when it sensed the impending accident. In 2021, Tesla did away with the radar and ultrasonic sensors that previously augmented the cameras comprising its 'Tesla Vision' feature, which the complaint says now 'lacks the added safety redundancy of radar or LiDAR sensors used in other autonomous driving systems.'
This, according to the complaint, can cause Teslas to become 'confused' under a variety of conditions, and actually cause a crash instead of avoiding one. It claims Tesla officials instead 'exposed' drivers to cars it knew were inherently dangerous, carrying with them 'substantial' risk of injury, even though the company knew there were 'feasible, safer alternative designs,' available at a 'minor' cost, which could have saved Heath Miller's life. (The parents and siblings of a 31-year-old Tesla owner killed behind the wheel of a Model S that crashed while in 'Autopilot' mode sued the company in December 2024 over the feature, which the family's attorney told The Independent was ' not… ready for primetime.')
The alleged dangers inherent in a Tesla are not 'not readily recognizable' to buyers, and the company 'failed to warn' customers of the risks, Sarah-Mai's complaint states. In the meantime, she has moved back to her home state of Ohio, where she is cobbling together a new life without the onetime partner she described as a 'stellar man.'
On Tuesday, a year to the day since the fatal accident, Sarah-Mai took to Instagram with a message.
'Heath's death has changed me, in just about every way,' she wrote. 'I have had to accept uncertainty in a way I used to fear, I have had to learn how to just exist as an individual in the world (without a partner) for the first time in my life... I miss you, Heathie. I am trying to continue to live life the way we did together, with the quite possibly delusional belief that we couldn't fail.'
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