Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog
Santa Monica city and other defendants will pay $6 million to settle two lawsuits stemming from a vehicle crash at the Farmers Market that left 10 people dead, bringing the total of payouts to plaintiffs in the case to $21 million.
The resolution of the two remaining lawsuits came during jury selection this week and follows a $15.3-million settlement earlier this year with 40 other plaintiffs.
A California appeals court last year reinstated allegations that the city had failed to adequately shield marketgoers from motorist George Weller. The driver who was 86 when he crashed his car through a wooden barricade on July 16, 2003, and plowed through pedestrians.
Weller was convicted of 10 counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence for one of the worst pedestrian tragedies in U.S. history.
At the time of the crash, wooden sawhorses were used to block off the street for the outdoor pedestrian market. A year after the deaths, the National Transportation Safety Board found that the city was partly to blame for the accident because the movable barriers were ineffective and a nearly 20-year-old traffic plan for the area did not comply with national, state or city guidelines. After the tragedy, city vehicles replaced the sawhorses.