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By Lookout Staff

October 17 -- The City of Santa Monica could be held liable in the 2003 farmers market tragedy that killed ten people and injured more than 60, a state appeals court has ruled.

Friday's unpublished decision comes some 15 months after a Superior court judge ruled that the City should not stand trial because it had a traffic control plan in place when an 86-year-old driver tore through the market at 60 miles per hour July 16, 2003.

The appeals court, however, reinstated allegations by lawyers representing victims and their families that the hand-written map did not adequately protect the crowds that gather at the popular open-air market.

The map, the court ruled, failed to show the wooden sawhorses used to block out cars on Arizona Avenue.

"It's a factual ruling that really turns on factual issues," said Chief Deputy City Attorney Jeanette Schachtner. "The fact that the appellate court found that was disputed can easily be addressed at trial, which we plan to do."

The City is exploring how to address the issue at the trial, which is scheduled to start in February.

"We believe there is an opportunity that a jury can address it, and we'll ask the court for that opportunity," Schachtner said.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs had argued that the City should be held liable in the case because the handwritten traffic control plan – which was unsigned, undated and unapproved – was inadequate.

The attorneys, who were stunned by the lower court decision, noted that the National Transportation Safety Board found that the City was partly to blame for the accident.

The board, which released its finding one year after the crash, concluded that the wooden sawhorses that blocked off Arizona from the market were not effective and that the City’s two-decade old traffic plan for the area failed to comply with national, state or city guidelines.

Superior Court Judge Valerie L. Baker, however, agreed with the City’s argument that the conditions at the market were not inherently dangerous and that a traffic plan, approved by its traffic engineer Ronald K. Fuchiwaki in 1987, entitles the City to immunity.

In a separate development, George Russell Weller, who was convicted last year of 10 counts of manslaughter in the crash that made international headlines, filed court papers on Tuesday to appeal the conviction

Weller, who is confined to his home and receives 24-hour nursing care, will break his silence when he complies with a court-ordered deposition and responds to questions from attorneys for Green, Broillet, Panish & Wheeler LLP, the prominent Santa Monica law firm also representing the farmers market victims in the case against the City.