The headline alone should show, what is odd with this case.
* Tesla clearly states, that the autopilot is a driving aid and should not be used unobserved.
* The engineer complained about the autopilot not working perfectly at the very place of crash. (Quite understandeable when seeing the state of the road and mostly absence of line markings in videos of the crash site).
* Evidence seems to show that prior to the crash he did not pay attention while driving on autopilot at this very part of the road.
So I really don't get why anyone whould trust their life to a driving assist by not paying attention and closely supervising the system.
Where I think the lawsuit should have a merit and a good chance of succeeding is the state of road and the maintenance by Caltrans. They are in my eyes liable for the deadly outcome of the crash and that there was a crash at all:
* Left exits by themselves are a safety issue and should not exist (extremely rare here in Europe).
* The line markings were almost non-existant. Potentially dangerous sections of roads should have very good line-markings.
* As a consequence, it seems to be common that cars crash into this divider. That there was a "reusable" crash protection at it, should show the dangers of this section clearly.
* The crash protection was not active which lead to the deadly nature of the crash, as a car had crashed into it a week before. No other protections were in place (traffic cones, barrels)
So this section is shown as being very dangerous as human drivers regularly crash into the divider, there are no traffic cones (or have been destroyed by people almost crashing into the divider) and it was not secured after the last crash. The exit and the left lane should have been closed for traffic as long as the crash bareer is not in place.