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Paul Walker’s Death Is Not The Fault Of Porsche, Judge Rules

By Stephen Jordan
Published on: 06:04 PST, Apr 5, 2016

The horrific 2013 car crash that killed Paul Walker was not Porsche’s fault, reports the New York Daily News. A U.S. District Judge has thrown out the a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Roger Rodas’ family — Roger was the passenger with Walker in their fatal 2013 car crash.

On November 30, 2013, Paul Walker and Roger Rodas were leaving an event for Walker’s charity, Reach Out Worldwide, for victims of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). They were driving in Rodas’s red 2005 Porsche Carrera GT. The vehicle crashed into a lamppost and two trees, after which the vehicle burst into flames. Both Paul and Roger’s bodies were burned to the point of being unrecognizable.

Meadow Walker, Paul Walker’s daughter, felt that Porsche was to be held responsible for the car accident, and the family of Roger Rodas has been making that same claim. However, it was taken to court, and Judge Philip S. Gutierrez dismissed the claims. Meadow and Rodas’ family claim that the Porsche Carrera had some faulty design defects and lacked safety features, but Gutierrez wrote this off as pure speculation and that they had no incontrovertible evidence.

Porsche had previously put the blame on Roger Rodas on November 30, 2013, after Rodas lost control of his Carrera GT. According to Porsche, Rodas, putting it very bluntly, “chose to conduct himself in a manner so as to expose himself and others to such perils, dangers, and risks.” Kristine Rodas, in May, 2014, filed a lawsuit in which she claimed that her husband Roger lost control of the vehicle due to faulty mechanics with the Carrera, and that the only reason his car exploded on impact was because it did not have the correct “crash cage” and “racing fuel cell.” This is a very common feature that is installed into race cars, so that when the drivers do crash, the fuel will not ignite on impact.

Rodas’ wife, Kristine, was also insistent that the passenger compartment was not durable enough to be able to withstand impact. This was also refuted when certain evidence revealed that Roger died when he was thrown in Paul Walker’s direction, and that it was not the compartment. Rodas died from blunt neck, chest, and head trauma, according to autopsy reports.

After Meadow Walker filed the wrongful death lawsuit in September of 2015, Porsche responded much like they did with Rodas, putting the blame of Paul Walker’s death on the actor himself.

“The subject 2005 Carrera GT was abused and altered after having been placed into the stream of commerce in a manner that was not reasonably forseeable to (Porsche),” according to the paperwork.

Paul Walker’s father, Paul Walker III, told In Touch magazine last October that Meadow’s father would have approved of her strong determination for justice.

“He was proud of Meadow,” Walker III said, “every day of her life.”

Michelle Rodriguez, a costar to Paul Walker from their Fast and Furious series, recently stated that she was at one point jealous of Walker’s death. While under the influence of Ayahuasca (psychedelic plant brew), Rodriguez felt sad that Paul had gone without her and left her behind. She was not jealous of this death per se, she clarified, stating that she felt jealousy over the fact that Walker had crossed over into the afterlife first.

“I have to say, you know, when I lost Paul, I was like … I went through about a year of just being like an animal. Like what could I do physically to just get my mind off of existentialism,” Michelle recalled. “Get my mind off of how transient life is, and how we just come here and can disappear at any moment. How could I get my mind off that? So I just went summer, crazy.”

[Photo by Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images]

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