Porsche Responds To Lawsuit By Widow Of Driver In Paul Walker Crash

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The Porsche auto-making company responded Tuesday to a lawsuit filed by the widow of Roger W. Rodas, the driver of the Carrera GT in a crash that killed both him and actor Paul Walker in November.

The wrongful death lawsuit by Kristine M. Rodas, seeking unspecified damages, says her husband was driving at 55 mph — not at unsafe speeds as law enforcement investigators determined — before it crashed last year. Roger W. Rodas was driving a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT capable of more than 200 mph, but his wife's lawsuit says the vehicle lacked a proper crash cage and safety features in the gas tank that would have saved both men's lives.

The lawsuit also contends that a failure in the car's suspension system forced it to careen out of control and strike three trees while driving down a street in Santa Clarita.

"The Carrera GT was unsafe for its intended use by reason of defects in its manufacture, design, testing, component and constituents, so that it would not safely serve its purpose," the lawsuit states.

Porsch Cars North America Inc. released a statement Tuesday in response to the lawsuit:

"We are very sorry for the Rodas and Walker family's loss. The crash was the subject of a detailed investigation by the proper authorities, and their investigation disproves the allegations in the lawsuit."

The results of the mentioned investigation, performed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and California Highway Patrol, was released in Marc,h and concluded that it was unsafe speed and not mechanical problems that caused the crash. That investigation was aided by engineers from Porsche, who evaluated the wreckage of the rare car.