Paul Walker's daughter has filed a wrongful death lawsuit
against Porsche, claiming the sports car he was riding in had multiple design
flaws.
The suit, filed
Monday on behalf of 16-year-old Meadow Rain Walker, seeks unspecified damages
for defects it alleges contributed to her father's death.
"The bottom
line is that the Porsche Carrera GT is a dangerous car. It doesn't belong on
the street," Walker's attorney, Jeff Milam, said in a statement. "And
we shouldn't be without Paul Walker or his friend, Roger Rodas."
Calvin Kim with
Porsche Cars North America said the automaker hasn't seen the lawsuit and
wouldn't comment on specifics.
"As we have
said before, we are saddened whenever anyone is hurt in a Porsche vehicle, but
we believe the authorities' reports in this case clearly established that this
tragic crash resulted from reckless driving and excessive speed," Kim
said.
The actor was
best known for his role as Brian O'Conner in the "Fast and Furious"
franchise. His life was cut short in a car crash in Southern California on
November 30, 2013, during a few days off in the filming of the seventh movie in
the popular series. He was 40.
The lawsuit alleges
"the vehicle lacked safety features that are found on well-designed racing
cars or even Porsche's least expensive road cars -- features that could have
prevented the accident or, at a minimum, allowed Paul Walker to survive the
crash."
The court document
contends the 2005 Carrera GT should have come with an electronic stability
control system to protect against swerving. The car also lacked adequate side
door reinforcement bars and had defective rubber fuel lines, according to the
lawsuit.
The investigation
An investigation by the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department said it was speed that killed the "Fast &
Furious" star.
"Investigators
determined the cause of the fatal solo-vehicle collision was unsafe speed for
the roadway conditions," Los Angeles County Sheriff's Commander Mike
Parker said in March 2014.
The
high-performance 2005 Porsche Carrera GT was going "between 80 and 93 mph
at the time the car impacted a power pole and several trees," the report
said. The posted speed limit on the Santa Clarita, California, office park road
was 45 mph.
The sheriff's
conclusion was no surprise, since the coroner's report previously estimated the
car was speeding at 100 mph.
The lawsuit
portrays a much-slower moving vehicle -- one that was traveling "at
approximately 63 to 71 mph when it suddenly went out of control."
Possibly to
explain the damage to the car in a lower-speed accident, the suit says the
doors on the Porsche used "side door reinforcement bars that lacked
adequate welds and consisted of material weaker in strength than what is used
in popular mass-market cars ... designed and built to be operated at speeds
much slower than the Carrera GT."
Last year's sheriff's investigation came to some additional
conclusions.
Walker and
friend Roger Rodas, 38, had no drugs or alcohol in their blood. Both men were
wearing seat belts. The airbags deployed as they should have when the car clipped
a light pole and several trees, investigators said.
Nothing
mechanical went wrong to cause the Porsche to leave the wide road.
Investigators found "no pre-existing conditions that would have caused
this collision," the report said. Experts
from Porsche and Michelin were consulted.
Walker and
Rodas, racing team partners, left a charity event at a car shop co-owned by the
men to take a ride in an office park in the community of Valencia in Santa
Clarita, about 30 miles north of Hollywood. The crash happened a few hundred
yards away on a wide street.
An autopsy
revealed "scant soot" in Walker's trachea, suggesting his life ended
before the smoke and fire engulfed the car.
The actor's body
was badly burned "and in a pugilistic stance. His right wrist was
fractured and his left arm was fractured," the report said. Rodas was also
described as in "a pugilistic" -- or defensive -- position.
Walker suffered fractures of his left jawbone, collarbone,
pelvis, ribs and spine, the report said.
Rodas
"rapidly died of severe blunt head, neck and chest trauma," the
report said.
Walker's death
came during a Thanksgiving break in filming of "Fast and Furious 7." The movie was completed using scenes already
filmed by Walker and scenes shot
using his brothers as body doubles.
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