A civil trial resumes this week in Florida focusing on the safety of Tesla vehicles.
The jury will soon weigh whether Tesla's self-driving features contributed to a deadly crash in 2019.
The judge in the case on Sunday issued a ruling that will limit what the jury is able to learn about Tesla crashes from the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB.
This case centers on a 2019 crash when a Tesla being driven in autopilot mode smashed into an SUV in Key Largo after the driver reached down to pick up a phone.
That crash killed Naibel Benavides Leon and critically injured her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. They are the plaintiffs.
Their attorneys are making the case this is part of a pattern of crashes involving Tesla "Autopilot."
They wanted the judge to allow them to share information from NTSB investigations of other crashes, but the judge on Sunday said no, saying congress has made clear NTSB reports should not be used to advantage or disadvantage any party in a civil suit.
But the jury will be able to learn about other crashes where the judge says they might show Tesla "was on notice of Autopilot's defect or dangerous conditions."
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Key testimony last week came from a former official at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Missy Cummings, a witness for the plaintiffs.
"It is my professional opinion that Tesla's Autopilot is defective because Tesla knowingly allows the car to be operated in operational domains for which it is explicitly not designed for," Cummings said in testimony. "I believe that they were using that as a way to sell more cars."
Tesla's attorneys countered that by drawing attention to Cummings being hired by lawyers suing Tesla in the past, and getting paid for it.
The automaker has also focused on the driver in this case in Florida who had his foot on the accelerator at the time of the crash that the company says would have overridden the autopilot feature.
And Tesla has said Autopilot was designed for use with an attentive driver with both hands on the wheel.
