Fred Lambert, at Electrek.co, did a brilliant job of analyzing Tesla’s conduct in the Key Largo Autopilot wrongful death case. I’ve been involved in cases where you are looking for a needle in a haystack. But usually the needle is in the haystack I’ve been provided. Fred recounts, through a thorough timeline analysis, how Tesla had data that I would have thought they had all along. The description of how Tesla hid the very data that led to its downfall in the case is chilling. The court found that it was unintentional. I respect the court’s ruling, as they say.

However, one bit stuck out to me. Fred wrote “Tesla arranged for Riso [a member of law enforcement] to meet Michael Calafell, a Tesla technician, at the local service center in in Coral Gables with the Autopilot ECU and the Model S’ MCU, the two main onboard computers.” I knew that name.

In my home page post, I described a witness as a “human punching bag.” I described his efforts in preparation for the arbitration. “Tesla produced one witness: a Field Technical Specialist who admitted he hadn’t checked what equipment shipped with our car, hadn’t reviewed our driving logs, and didn’t know details about the FSD system installed on our car, if any. He hadn’t spoken to any sales rep we dealt with or reviewed the contract’s integration clause.”

I described him as someone I thought would answer key questions but was unprepared to do so, being forced to defend a system he clearly didn’t understand. That witness’ name? Michael Calafell.

So when I read in Fred’s analysis that Mr. Calafell was involved, I immediately sat up in my chair. This is the same guy who seemed to know nothing when I examined him. I specifically asked him if he saw the logs for my car or any of the data. He said he hadn’t. He didn’t even seem to know how to get that information. And here he pops up again, this time he apparently testified that he had no prior experience extracting data from the ECU when he was asked to do so in 2019. In my case, he testified that he never asked for, or reviewed, the logs generated by my car.

Calafell’s purported task was to work with the police to get data from two onboard computers, the MCU and ECU, a task he had never done before. The plaintiff’s expert testified that, even though Tesla reported that one of the units wasn’t even fired up, both units were found by the expert to have powered on. The expert found a file index entry for the file that contained the data that Tesla failed to produce. According to Fred, when they finally faced the inevitable discovery and sanctions motion, Tesla finally disclosed the video and data that the car captured, sent to the mothership, and then deleted from the local hardware. Tesla was forced to recant Calafell’s deposition testimony, something I’ve experienced rarely in my 40 years as a trial lawyer. I’ve forced others to do it. I don’t recall having any of my witnesses or clients do it.

I have seen one justification for this – that the amount of local storage on a Model S is limited while the mothership has virtually unlimited storage. That may be true. But why deny the fact that you have the file if the only reason is convenience and storage efficiency in the car? Why run the plaintiffs through the wringer to force you to give up the file? If the file was going to help your defense, why fight about the file at all?

But for me, the involvement of Calafell was the key. Based on his years-later performance in our arbitration, he appears to be someone that Tesla uses to say whatever they want him to say and do whatever they want him to do. In the Key Largo case, they asked him to do something he had never done before and it appears that he may not have done it correctly. Maybe this was when he got on Tesla’s radar as their “go-to” guy when they need a warm body, but not someone with too much knowledge.

In our case, we were disputing the delivery of FSD, including the use of the safety score, and he could not confirm that the car was delivered with FSD other than to say it was listed on our purchase agreement. He could not explain the workings of the safety score. He didn’t know what was widely known – that Tesla disables any FSD software when the vehicle is traded in to a dealership (I know, Tesla doesn’t have dealerships) that sells a different brand. He wasn’t familiar with the terms of the contract. He couldn’t compare the FSD that was at issue in our case with what Tesla now calls “Full Self Driving (Supervised)”

But there’s more. Because the Key Largo case and our case are not the only places where Calafell has made an appearance. In a case in Broward County, Florida, Calafell submitted an affidavit about services performed on a Tesla roadster. The affidavit concerned the battery pack and battery management. He didn’t perform the work, but summarized what work was performed. Tesla lost that case, too. In fact, in that case, Tesla lost a paltry sum in damages, about $19,000. But since the claim qualified for an award of attorneys’ fees, Tesla owed the plaintiff’s lawyers over $160,000. That’s some “hard-core” litigation management right there.

This makes me wonder. Is Michael Calafell being set up for each of Tesla’s litigation blunders? Why isn’t Tesla using witnesses with more knowledge? Is Michael Calafell someone that Tesla views as a speed bump in a plaintiff or claimant’s road to success? It looks like I’ll have more cases against Tesla. So I guess we’ll find out.