Tesla $42 Million Verdict: Indiana Supreme Court Sends Vicarious Liability to a Jury

The Indiana Supreme Court has reversed the ruling that made Tesla automatically answerable for its employee's 2017 crash with a motorcyclist, holding that a jury, not a judge, must decide whether the employee was acting within the scope of employment when driving a Tesla service truck to a gas station on the way to work. Because the Court of Appeals had already ordered a new damages trial over the trial judge's private conversation with jurors, the Tesla $42 million verdict, entered in March 2024 at $42,481,243, is now effectively gone, and both Tesla's liability and the size of any award will be tried again in Marion County.

The opinion in Tesla, Inc. v. Dugan Norris, No. 26S-CT-00169, was file-stamped November 4, 2026 and reported November 5. Justice Geoffrey Slaughter wrote for the court, and Justice Christopher Goff concurred in part and dissented in part. The plaintiff is AnnaMarie Dugan Norris, guardian of the estate of Christopher Dugan, an Avon motorcyclist left with a severe and permanent traumatic brain injury and a partial foot amputation. For the plaintiffs' personal injury bar and for any company that lets employees drive fleet vehicles home, the decision is a reminder that respondeat superior on a commute is a fact question in Indiana, and that winning it on summary judgment can cost a plaintiff years.

What did the Indiana Supreme Court decide in the Tesla $42 million verdict case?

The court reversed the trial court's entry of partial summary judgment that had found Tesla vicariously liable for Kyle Kaszuba's negligence. According to the court's summary and contemporaneous reports, the justices concluded that genuine issues of material fact exist about whether Kaszuba was acting within the scope of employment at the moment of the accident, given that Kaszuba was driving a Tesla service truck and had stopped for fuel before reaching work. On remand, the jury must resolve that question.

The opinion addresses only the vicarious liability ruling. On every remaining issue raised about the liability and damages phases of the 2024 trial, the Supreme Court summarily affirmed the Court of Appeals. That matters because the intermediate court had already upheld the liability-phase verdict and ordered a new trial on damages. The practical result is a remand with two open questions: whether Tesla is on the hook at all, and how much Dugan's injuries are worth.

The analytical starting point was Indiana's common-law going-and-coming rule, under which an employee traveling to or from work is ordinarily not acting within the scope of employment. Tesla had petitioned for transfer on that ground, arguing the rule should have barred a finding of vicarious liability as a matter of law. The Supreme Court did not go that far either. It did not hold that Tesla is free of liability; it held that neither side was entitled to judgment on the record, so the question goes to the factfinder.

Does Tesla still have to pay the $42 million verdict?

No, not as matters stand. The Court of Appeals' order of a new damages trial vacated the dollar figure, and the Supreme Court's reversal removed the ruling that tied Tesla to whatever damages a jury awards. Tesla will owe money only if a new jury finds Kaszuba was acting within the scope of employment and a damages jury then fixes an amount.

Kaszuba's own negligence finding is a different matter. The 2024 liability-phase jury allocated 70% of fault to Kaszuba and 30% to Dugan, and the Supreme Court's summary affirmance of the Court of Appeals on the remaining issues leaves that allocation intact on the reported summaries of the opinion. What changes is whether Tesla stands behind its employee's share. In crash cases of this kind, that is usually the only question that matters for collectability: a service technician cannot satisfy an eight-figure judgment, and the employer and its insurers can.

Timeline of Dugan v. Tesla

Date	Event
April 2017	Kaszuba, driving a Tesla-owned Ford F-250 Super Duty service truck, collides with Dugan's motorcycle while maneuvering at a gas station in Marion County
Before trial	Marion Superior Court grants Dugan partial summary judgment that Tesla is vicariously liable for Kaszuba's negligence
March 4–13, 2024	Bifurcated jury trial in Marion Superior Court (Judge Marianne Vorhees, per Courtroom View Network)
March 13, 2024	Jury finds Kaszuba 70% at fault and Dugan 30%; gross damages of about $60.7 million ($60,687,491) reduce to a net $42,481,243; plaintiff had asked for $191 million
November 10, 2025	Indiana Court of Appeals hears argument in No. 25A-CT-198
December 30, 2025	Court of Appeals (Judge Tavitas) affirms summary judgment and liability, but orders a new damages trial because of the judge's ex parte conversation with jurors
2026	Indiana Supreme Court grants Tesla's petition to transfer on two issues, including the going-and-coming rule, vacating the Court of Appeals opinion
June 30, 2026	Indiana Supreme Court oral argument
November 4–5, 2026	Supreme Court reverses partial summary judgment on vicarious liability; summarily affirms the Court of Appeals on all other issues; remands

What is the going-and-coming rule in Indiana?

Indiana's going-and-coming rule holds that an employee on the way to or from work is not normally acting within the scope of employment, so the employer is generally not vicariously liable for a crash on the commute. The rule rests on the idea that the employer has no meaningful control over how, when, or by what route an employee gets to work.

The word "normally" has done a lot of work in Indiana case law. Courts in the state, as elsewhere, recognize that a commute can become work when the employee is also running an errand for the employer or conferring a benefit on the business at the same time. That is often described as the special errand or dual-purpose exception. The Court of Appeals' 2014 decision in Dodson v. Carlson, for example, refused to extend employer liability to an employee driving home after a business dinner, distinguishing trips with a genuine business purpose. The broader framework comes from cases such as Barnett v. Clark (Ind. 2008), which describe respondeat superior as attaching to harms an employee inflicts while acting within the scope of employment.

Two features of the Tesla facts pushed against the default rule. First, Kaszuba was not commuting in a personal car but in a company-owned service truck. Second, the trip included a stop that arguably served Tesla: putting fuel in Tesla's truck. The Supreme Court's answer is that these facts make the case contestable, not that they decide it.

Why did the Tesla employee's gas station stop matter?

The gas stop was the hinge of the trial court's summary judgment. According to the trial-level briefing as summarized by The Indiana Lawyer, Kaszuba noticed the truck was low on fuel and, following what was described as a company courtesy, decided to fill it at a station on the way in. Dugan's side characterized the practice as an informal employee policy that vehicles not be returned with less than a quarter tank, and the trial court reasoned that Kaszuba would not have been turning at the gas station but for that policy, which made the stop work-related.

Tesla disputed the premise. It told the courts that it had no company policy requiring employees to fill service trucks on their morning commute or at any other time. Where an employer says a practice was optional and the plaintiff says it was expected, the existence and force of the practice is a classic disputed fact. So is the related question of how much control Tesla exercised over the truck and the employee's use of it before the workday began. Those are the issues the Supreme Court says a jury must weigh.

The distinction is practical. If refueling was a job duty, the stop looks like work and the employer's exposure follows. If it was a personal convenience on a personal commute, the going-and-coming rule ordinarily insulates the employer. A summary judgment record that contains both stories cannot support judgment for either side.

Why did the Court of Appeals order a new damages trial?

The trial judge had an ex parte conversation with jurors while they were deliberating in the damages phase, outside the presence of counsel. Under Indiana law, an ex parte communication between the trial court and the jury creates a presumption of error, and the burden shifts to the party defending the verdict to show the communication was harmless.

The Court of Appeals held that Dugan's guardian did not rebut that presumption. The panel said it could not rule out that the conversation influenced the jurors' decision, and it noted that the speed of the verdict after the exchange suggested it may have. It therefore affirmed the judgment in every respect except the damages phase, which it sent back for retrial. Because the Supreme Court granted transfer, the Court of Appeals opinion, reported at 274 N.E.3d 956, was vacated, but the Supreme Court then summarily affirmed it on the issues the justices did not separately address, which reinstates its reasoning on the juror communication.

For trial judges, the lesson is old but expensive: any substantive contact with a deliberating jury belongs on the record with counsel present. For plaintiffs' counsel, it is a reminder that a large verdict can be lost on a procedural error that neither party caused.

What happens next in the Dugan v. Tesla case?

The case returns to Marion Superior Court for further proceedings consistent with the opinion. Based on the opinion's disposition, the remaining trial work is:

Issue	Status after November 2026
Kaszuba's negligence and the 70/30 fault allocation	Liability-phase findings left in place by the summary affirmance
Tesla's vicarious liability (scope of employment)	Reversed on summary judgment; to be tried to a jury
Damages (2024 gross of about $60.7 million, net $42,481,243)	Vacated; new damages trial ordered
Ex parte juror communication	Error requiring retrial, per the Court of Appeals reasoning the Supreme Court affirmed
Going-and-coming rule as a complete bar	Not adopted as a matter of law; applied as a framework for the jury question

Whether the scope-of-employment issue and damages are tried together or in phases is for the trial court. The parties can also settle; a dispute that now requires a full retrial nine years after the crash, with Dugan's injuries undisputedly catastrophic, has obvious incentives on both sides. Dugan was represented at trial by Nick Rowley of Trial Lawyers for Justice, whose team described the 2024 result as a zero-offer case, and Tesla was represented at trial by Quinn Emanuel.

Can an employer be liable when an employee crashes a company vehicle on the way to work?

Yes, sometimes, and the Tesla ruling shows why the answer depends on facts. Under the going-and-coming rule, a normal commute is outside the scope of employment, even in a company vehicle. An employer can still be liable if the trip also served the business, for example when the employee was required to have the vehicle available for work, was carrying tools or parts, was on call, or was performing a task the employer expected, such as fueling a fleet truck. When the evidence on those points conflicts, Indiana courts send the question to a jury rather than resolving it on summary judgment.

What it means for employers, insurers, and the PI bar

For fleet employers and their insurers. The ruling gives companies room to contest vicarious liability for take-home vehicles, but not a safe harbor. A written policy on whether employees may or must refuel, run errands, or carry equipment on the commute will shape the fact record in future cases. Ambiguous "courtesy" practices are precisely what turned this case into a nine-year dispute. Commercial auto and excess carriers pricing fleet exposure in Indiana will read the opinion as confirming that scope-of-employment defenses usually survive to trial.

For plaintiffs' counsel. Pressing for partial summary judgment on respondeat superior can streamline trial, but it can also hand the defense an appellate issue that unwinds the whole judgment. Where the employer's control over a commute is disputed, counsel may weigh trying the issue to the jury with a special interrogatory, because a jury finding is reviewed far more deferentially than a summary judgment. The case also shows how an unrelated procedural error, the judge's ex parte jury contact, compounds risk: two independent problems now require two retrials of a single verdict.

For defense counsel. The opinion strengthens the case for transfer petitions on employer-liability rulings resolved on paper. It does not adopt the going-and-coming rule as an automatic bar, so defense teams should expect to try the question with evidence about policy, control, and benefit to the employer, not merely to cite the rule.

For the trial bench. The summary affirmance reinforces Indiana's presumption-of-error rule for ex parte jury communications. A short conversation during deliberations helped erase a verdict produced by a trial that ran from March 4 to March 13, 2024.

How this fits the 2026 verdict-review pattern

The Tesla decision joins a run of 2026 appellate rulings in which large personal injury verdicts were reopened on structural or procedural grounds rather than on the size of the award: Georgia's Court of Appeals voided a Walmart premises verdict over anchoring in closing argument, and the Ohio Supreme Court addressed juror bias in Estate of Price. In each, the reviewing court left the underlying injury unquestioned and focused on how the verdict was reached. For plaintiffs' firms valuing large trial wins, the common thread is that the appellate risk sits in pretrial rulings and courtroom procedure as much as in damages.

FAQ

What did the Indiana Supreme Court decide in the Tesla $42 million verdict case?

It reversed the partial summary judgment that made Tesla vicariously liable for its employee's 2017 crash, holding that whether the employee was within the scope of employment during a commute with a gas stop is a disputed fact for a jury.

Does Tesla still have to pay the $42 million verdict?

No. The damages award was vacated for a new trial over the judge's ex parte contact with jurors, and Tesla's liability for its employee's negligence must now be tried. Tesla will owe money only if a jury finds the employee acted within the scope of employment.

What is the going-and-coming rule?

It is the common-law rule that an employee traveling to or from work is not normally acting within the scope of employment, so the employer is generally not vicariously liable. Exceptions apply when the trip also serves the employer.

Why was there a new damages trial?

The trial judge spoke ex parte with jurors during damages deliberations. Indiana presumes such contact is error, and the Court of Appeals held the plaintiff did not show it was harmless.

Who are the parties in Tesla v. Dugan Norris?

Tesla, Inc. and its employee Kyle Kaszuba are the appellants; AnnaMarie Dugan Norris sues as guardian of the estate of Christopher Dugan, the injured motorcyclist. The case is No. 26S-CT-00169 in the Indiana Supreme Court.

How much was the original Tesla verdict?

The March 2024 Marion County jury assessed about $60.7 million in damages, reduced by Dugan's 30% comparative fault to $42,481,243, often reported as $42 million or $42.5 million. The plaintiff had asked for $191 million.

Who represented Christopher Dugan against Tesla?

Nick Rowley of Trial Lawyers for Justice led Dugan's trial team in 2024, and Quinn Emanuel represented Tesla at trial.