The widow of the man who was driving a Porsche sports car that crashed and killed Fast & Furious actor Paul Walker is suing the car maker.
She is claiming that design flaws caused both men to die in the crash in November.
The wrongful death lawsuit by Kristine Rodas says her husband was driving at 55mph - not at unsafe speeds as law enforcement investigators decided - before it crashed last year.
Roger Rodas was driving a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT capable of speeds more than 200mph, but his wife's lawsuit says the vehicle lacked a proper crash cage and safety features in the petrol 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 career out of control and strike three trees while driving down a street in Santa Clarita, California.
"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.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from Porsche Cars North America, which did not immediately comment.
Kristine Rodas' lawyer, Mark Geragos, said he hired the most senior experts in the country to evaluate the wreckage and crash.
The results, he said, were an unbiased look at the accident that refutes an official investigation that decided the sports car was speeding at up to 94mph when it crashed.
The results of an investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and California Highway Patrol were released in March 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.
The differing opinions on the crash will probably be a part of any trial over the lawsuit, which could take years to resolve.
Roger Rodas was trained as a race car driver, according to his wife's lawsuit. He left behind two young children on his death.
Walker, the star of the Fast & Furious film franchise, co-owned a car racing team with Mr Rodas named Always Evolving.
Walker's death occurred on a break in the filming of Fast & Furious 7, and the actor's two brothers are helping complete action scenes in the film.
The film's release has been delayed until April 2015.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article