Mother Of Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes Is Suing Automaker

(CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — The mother of late hip-hop star Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes is suing an automaker alleging it ignored warnings that its SUV was prone to rolling over.

Lopes, a member of the Grammy Award-winning Atlanta-based trio TLC, died in the single-car accident while on vacation in Honduras in 2002. She had been driving a rented 2001 Mitsubishi Montero at the time of the crash. The eight other passengers in the SUV survived.

The lawsuit that Wanda Lopes-Colemon, Lopes' mother, has brought against the Japanese company and its North American subsidiary claims Lopes was driving at a normal speed when she swerved to miss a car stopped in front of her, causing her SUV to flip, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The suit acknowledges a study on vehicle rollovers to bolster the claim that Mitsubishi should have warned consumers about the potentially fatal design flaw. Consumer Reports gave the 2001 Mitsubishi Montero a "not acceptable" safety rating after testing the model and six other SUVs. Only the Montero appeared prone to rollovers according to the study.

Mitsubishi officials deny any wrongdoing in the case. –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers

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