Robot lawsuits and settlements
The Machine Record lists 19 verified lawsuits and settlements over commercial robot incidents since 2009: 15 where a person was hurt, 4 of them fatal, 9 that reached a regulator, recall, fine, lawsuit or settlement. Counted on 2026-10-03; every case links to its sources.
- Cases
- 19
- Someone hurt
- 15
- Fatal
- 4
- Escalated
- 9
- Period
- 2009-01 to 2026-07
By year
- 2009███ 1
- 2010 0
- 2011 0
- 2012 0
- 2013 0
- 2014██████ 2
- 2015 0
- 2016█████████ 3
- 2017 0
- 2018 0
- 2019███ 1
- 2020 0
- 2021█████████ 3
- 2022███ 1
- 2023██████ 2
- 2024███ 1
- 2025████████████ 4
- 2026███ 1
By outcome
- serious injury10
- fatality4
- no harm3
- property damage1
- minor injury1
By type of event
- lawsuit14
- injury3
- fatality2
Counts measure what was reported in English and cleared verification, not how many events took place. Fleet sizes are not public, so none of this is a rate. Rules are on the methodology page; the numbers are CC BY 4.0, cite this page. CSV, JSON and an API are on the data page.
Cases
The 19 cases behind the number
Newest first. Each one links to its timeline and to the sources it rests on.
- 2026-07-15GM Cruise robotaxi injury lawsuit sent to arbitration due to sign-in wrap agreementReport
- 2025-11-05A private Tasmanian hospital is being sued over an injury claim related to robotic surgery.Report
- 2025-10-22An Uber Eats delivery robot developed by Avride allegedly cut off a cyclist in the bike lane on Varick Street in Jersey City, causing him to go airborne and sustain a concussion and broken clavicle.Report
- 2025-09-01Former Figure AI principal robotic safety engineer Robert Gruendel sued the company in the Northern District of California, alleging he was dismissed in September 2025 after warning executives that the company's humanoid robots were powerful enough to fracture a human skull, and citing a malfunction in which a robot carved a quarter-inch gash into a steel refrigerator door.Lawsuit
- 2025-04-01Class certified for purchasers in antitrust lawsuit against surgical robot manufacturerReport
- 2024-09-10An Avride delivery robot collided with a cyclist's e-bike at the intersection of Philomena Street and Berkman Drive in Austin, Texas, causing the cyclist serious personal injuries.Report
- 2023-05-12A proposed class action lawsuit alleges that Ecovacs Deebot robot vacuums contain a defective motor built from substandard materials that causes the devices to fail prematurely and become wholly inoperable.Report
- 2023-01-01A Starship food delivery robot reversed into a 73-year-old ASU parking attendant on the Tempe campus, knocking her down and causing a laceration near her left elbow and subsequent back pain.Lawsuit
- 2022-06-03A 71-year-old man died on June 26, 2022, after undergoing robotic surgery to remove prostate cancer at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London on June 3, 2022, with a lawsuit alleging the hospital lacked the resources to safely perform the procedure and failed to transfer him sooner to a major medical center.Report
- 2021-12-31A Tesla software engineer was attacked by a robot at Tesla's Giga Texas factory in Austin when a third robot that had not been disabled pinned him and sank its metal claws into his back and arm, causing lacerations.Lawsuit
- 2021-09-01A da Vinci surgical robot allegedly burned and tore a patient's small intestine during colon cancer surgery in Florida in September 2021, leading to additional procedures and her death in February 2022, prompting a wrongful death lawsuit against Intuitive Surgical.Lawsuit
- 2021-07-14Hospitals sue surgical robot maker over allegedly restrictive contractsReport
- 2019-11-01At Tesla's Fremont, California plant in November 2019, a stack of three steel skids on an automated conveyor system knocked a worker down and dragged him more than 15 feet, seriously injuring both his legs.Lawsuit
- 2016-06-18A twenty-year-old worker was crushed to death inside a robotic welding station at the Ajin USA facility in Cusseta, Alabama, when the robot abruptly restarted while she and co-workers were clearing a sensor fault.Lawsuit
- 2016-06-18A 20-year-old worker was killed when a robot at the Ajin USA plant in Cusseta, Alabama restarted abruptly while she was inside a robotic station clearing a sensor fault on a stopped assembly line.Lawsuit
- 2016-04-22$30M surgical robot defect trial settles during jury deliberationsSettlement
- 2014-09-30A piece of a surgical robot fell into a patient's abdominal cavity unnoticed during surgery, resulting in a $475,000 lawsuit.Lawsuit
- 2014-03-25Shareholders filed a derivative lawsuit against Intuitive Surgical alleging the company underreported adverse events and concealed recalls related to its da Vinci surgical robot.Report
- 2009-01-01Michelle Zarick alleged that inadequately insulated electrified scissors on the da Vinci robotic surgical system caused internal injuries during a 2009 hysterectomy, resulting in intestinal prolapse and emergency surgery requiring a hip-to-hip incision.Report
Questions
What people ask about these numbers
- How many incidents involving lawsuits and settlements over commercial robot incidents are on record?
- The Machine Record lists 19 verified lawsuits and settlements over commercial robot incidents since 2009: 15 where a person was hurt, 4 of them fatal, 9 that reached a regulator, recall, fine, lawsuit or settlement. Counted on 2026-10-03; every case links to its sources.
- What counts as an incident here?
- A case enters the register only when two independent published sources or one regulator record (NHTSA, CPSC, OSHA, EU Safety Gate) describe the same event with a date and an outcome. Demonstrations that went wrong, recalls, investigations, injuries and deaths all count; marketing and speculation do not.
- Is this every incident that happened?
- No. It is every incident reported in English that cleared verification. Fleet sizes are not public, so none of these numbers is a rate, and a company with more cases is often a company with more vehicles on the road and more press coverage.
- Can I reuse these numbers?
- Yes. Case metadata is CC BY 4.0: cite The Machine Record with a link. CSV and JSON exports and an API are on the data page.
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