A significant win for Tesla (TSLA.O), still facing several lawsuits and government probes about the same technology, came on Tuesday when it emerged victorious in the first U.S. trial concerning claims that its Autopilot driving assistance system caused a fatality.

With this ruling, Tesla has achieved its second significant victory of the year, as jurors have refused to conclude that the company’s software was flawed. The more sophisticated Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk has hailed as essential to the company’s future but has come under regulatory and legal scrutiny, has been tested and implemented.

The verdict in the civil case demonstrates the growing popularity of Tesla’s claims that drivers have the last say when something goes wrong on the road.

The owner, Micah Lee’s Model 3, was accused of using the Autopilot system to abruptly swerve off a highway east of Los Angeles at 65 miles per hour (105 kilometers per hour), impact a palm tree, and catch fire in seconds. The civil case was filed in Riverside County Superior Court.

Court records indicate that Lee was killed in the 2019 incident, and both of his passengers—including an 8-year-old kid who was disemboweled—were critically injured. The plaintiffs requested $400 million in punitive damages from the jury throughout the trial, which featured graphic evidence of the injuries suffered by the passengers. Tesla refuted responsibility, claiming Lee drank alcohol before operating a vehicle. The manufacturer of electric vehicles further said that it was unclear if Autopilot was activated at the moment of the collision.

The 12-person jury declared that there was no manufacturing flaw in the car. A 9-3 majority was decided on the fourth day of the trial. Plaintiffs’ attorney, Jonathan Michaels, expressed dissatisfaction with the decision in a statement but said that Tesla was “pushed to its limits” during the trial. “The jury’s prolonged deliberation suggests that the verdict still casts a shadow of uncertainty,” he stated. According to Tesla, their vehicles are well-built and increase road safety. The business said, “The jury’s decision was the right one.”

Despite calling its system “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving,” Tesla told drivers that it needed human supervision, and this tactic helped the company win a prior trial in April in Los Angeles. Jurors, in that case, told Reuters following the judgment that they thought Tesla should have warned drivers about its technology and that driver attention was at fault in the accident involving the Model S that drifted into the curb and wounded its driver.

The results of both instances, according to Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, demonstrate that “our juries are still really focused on the idea of a human in the driver’s seat being where the buck stops.” According to Matthew Wansley, an associate professor at Cardozo School of Law and the former general counsel of the autonomous driving firm nuTonomy, the Riverside case also included particular steering problems.

Plaintiffs in previous cases have claimed that Autopilot’s flawed design encourages drivers to abuse the technology. However, the Riverside jury’s only task was to decide whether a manufacturing flaw affected the steering.

Wansley stated, “I would find this confusing if I were a juror.” Tesla’s stock increased by almost 2% before closing at 1.76%.

A plaintiff’s counsel presented jurors with an internal Tesla safety review from 2017 that identified “incorrect steering command” as a flaw involving an “excessive” steering wheel angle during the Riverside trial.

According to a Tesla attorney, the safety review was meant to assist the corporation in resolving any potential problems with the car rather than to find a flaw. The carmaker then designed a mechanism to stop Autopilot from making the turn that resulted in the collision.

Eloy Rubio Blanco, a Tesla engineer, denied the testimony that the firm dubbed its driver-assistant function “full self-driving” because it intended consumers to think that its systems were more capable than they were. The plaintiff’s lawyer made this argument.

“Do I believe that our drivers believe our cars are driven by themselves? According to a trial transcript, Rubio reportedly said, “No.

The United States Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into Tesla for its self-driving car claims. Furthermore, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been looking into how well Autopilot works after discovering that Tesla cars had collided with stopped emergency vehicles in over a dozen collisions.

According to Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst at Guidehouse Insights, Tesla has solid legal defenses in a civil lawsuit because of its disclaimers.

“I think anyone is going to have a hard time beating Tesla in court on a liability claim,” he stated. “Regulators need to address this,”