Complaint

Two truck drivers have sued one of Southern California's largest trucking companies, alleging they were denied breaks, lunch hours and overtime because they were treated as independent contractors rather than employees of Harbor Express Inc. The lawsuit filed this week is one of several complaints lodged against trucking companies in recent years and is seeking class-action status. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said it could affect as many as 400 truck drivers who worked for the Wilmington-based company since May 2009.

Gov. Jerry Brown's administration disputes complaints that the governor's vocal legal challenges to orders to improve prison conditions has brought progress to a halt. The federal court-appointed medical receiver in charge of prison healthcare filed a progress report Wednesday that said the result of remarks by top state officials that California has spent "too many resources and too much money" on prisons "has been to freeze and ossify" his own progress with the state. Corrections officials responded late Wednesday with their own public statement.

I'm an 84-year-old man on Social Security with original Medicare and Mutual of Omaha gap insurance. My insurance premium was raised from $262 to $363 a month, a 39% jump. After all my monthly expenses, I have just $240 left. What can I do in the event of another increase in my premiums? If you've had your current Medicare supplement plan for years, it's not surprising that you've seen your costs steadily rise, says Steve Zaleznick, senior Medicare advisor at PlanPrescriber, a Maynard, Mass.-based online provider of Medicare education and plan comparison tools.

Students and activists joined together Wednesday to file complaints against colleges and universities nationwide, alleging that the schools have failed to follow federal laws, including those involving the reporting of sexual assaults and discrimination. Attorney Gloria Allred announced that complaints were filed against Swarthmore College, Dartmouth College, USC and UC Berkeley on Wednesday morning. Some of these were Title IX complaints alleging a hostile environment for women.

Bank of America Corp., which handles customer service on about 15% of U.S. home loans, has accounted for 30% of the mortgage complaints logged by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a new database made public by the federal watchdog. The level of customer discontent - far greater than at home-lending rivals Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. - reflects BofA's struggles since its 2008 acquisition of Countrywide Financial Corp. in Calabasas. Countrywide had become the No. 1 mortgage firm by specializing in subprime and other high-risk loans.

If you have a gripe about a business, your usual first step would be to talk directly to a representative of the company. But if that fails to resolve the issue, you can ramp it up by filing an official complaint with the appropriate government agency. Here's where to go for some common consumer issues: •Contractors. The California Contractors State License Board handles complaints related to such things as poor construction work, failure to finish a job, unpaid subcontractors, building code violations and deceptive advertising.

Here's whom to contact should you want to file a complaint against a California nursing home or hospital. California Department of Public Health To contact the licensing and certification division of the California Department of Public Health, which is the state regulator for hospitals and nursing homes, call (323) 869-8500 or (800) 228-1019 for the Los Angeles district office. To file a complaint, call (800) 236-9747 or go online to the organization's Health Consumer Information Systems . A complaint form is on the information page of each hospital or long-term care facility.

WASHINGTON -- China filed a World Trade Organization complaint Monday challenging U.S. anti-dumping measures on billions of dollars in goods as trade tensions escalated between the two economic superpowers. The move came as the Obama administration said Monday it was complaining to the WTO that China was illegally subsidizing exports of automobiles and auto parts. President Obama was set to announce the move while campaigning in Ohio, a key battleground in the November election and a state that has a large auto industry.

Chronic pain is usually thought of as a problem affecting adults. But a new study shows that chronic pain is also highly prevalent in children and that more kids today suffer from pain compared with two decades ago. Researchers in Nova Scotia analyzed data from 41 studies on pain in children published since 1991,which was the last time such an analysis was completed. They found that chronic pain conditions are more common in girls than boys and that pain problems tend to increase with age. Headache is the most common type of chronic pain in kids, with 23% of children age7 to 18 reporting weekly headaches and 5% reporting daily headaches.

Federal agents have threatened to seize from Sotheby's a 10th-century Cambodian sandstone statue, alleging the auction house planned to sell it despite warnings that looters had stolen the piece from its rightful place, adorning an ancient temple in the former Khmer kingdom. Court documents filed Wednesday in New York say the Duryodhana statue -- listed as the "Defendant in rem" in the complaint -- was apparently torn from the Prasat Chen Temple in  Koh Ker in northern Cambodia sometime in the 1960s or early 1970s, when the Asian nation was engulfed in civil unrest.

Union officials representing school cafeteria workers led a noisy rally of parents Tuesday to save a Los Angeles Unified classroom breakfast program that feeds nearly 200,000 children but was in danger of being axed after sharp criticism by teachers. Even as the majority of L.A. Unified school board members indicated they would vote to continue the program, about 100 parents turned out at Hooper Elementary in South L.A., waving noisemakers and signs in Spanish and English to save the breakfasts.

Los Angeles police say they have investigated three rape cases involving Occidental College students in the last three years, far fewer than current and former students outline in a civil rights complaint. In the U.S. Department of Education complaint filed Thursday, attorney Gloria Allred's law firm, which represents several current and former students, alleges that 37 students were "raped, sexually assaulted, battered, harassed or retaliated against for speaking out against sexual violence" since 2009.

Occidental College has hired two former sex crimes prosecutors to complete an extensive review of the university's handling of sex abuse cases amid allegations that officials don't take such cases seriously. The university announced the review Thursday after a group of Occidental students, faculty and alumni filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education alleging that the school failed to protect women from sexual assaults. Flanked by six current and former students, attorney Gloria Allred said the complaint outlines violations of Title IX, which bars sex discrimination at schools.

This post has been corrected. See the note below for details. Occidental College has hired two former sex crimes prosecutors to complete an extensive review of the university's handling of sex abuse cases amid allegations that officials don't take such cases seriously. The university announced the review Thursday, when a group of Occidental College students, faculty and alumni filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education alleging that the school failed to protect women from sexual assaults.

A Westside neighborhood activist who has sued Mike Feuer's Los Angeles city attorney campaign has also filed a complaint with the City Ethics Commissionabout a legal defense fund Feuer set up in response to the lawsuit. Laura Lake, who backs incumbent City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, complained that Feuer did not report any legal expenses, which she believes he had incurred by the April 6 reporting deadline. She contends that Feuer already had retained attorney Ron Turovsky and therefore should have shown some financial activity on his report.

The KPMG insider trading scam was far more profitable than earlier known and went longer than thought. Scott London, the disgraced ex-auditor from KPMG's office in Los Angeles, has been charged in a federal complaint with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud through insider trading. “The public has every right to fully expect a level playing field in our financial markets," U.S. Atty. André Birotte Jr. said. “As alleged in the complaint, Mr. London chose to betray the trust placed in him as a financial auditor and to tip the trading scales for the benefit of insiders like himself.” Full coverage: KPMG auditor accused of insider trading The 24-page affidavit alleges that London provided confidential information about KPMG clients to Bryan Shaw, a close friend, over a period of several years and that Shaw used this information to make highly profitable securities trades that generated more than $1 million in illegal proceeds.

Herman Cain will address a gathering of conservative activists Friday afternoon when he appears at a summit hosted by Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit group known for its ties to the billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch. Cain's appearance will be something of a homecoming for the embattled presidential hopeful, whose connections to Americans for Prosperity have come under new scrutiny this week after it was revealed that an affiliated group may have illegally helped jump-start Cain's presidential campaign.

As a former Bostonian and New York City resident, I can't understand anyone having a complaint about the Los Angeles subway system. The first time I ever rode it two years ago, it was so clean, quiet and well patrolled by police officers that it was almost like science fiction. Sure, a few extra musicians performing at various stops would be nice. But with the lack of graffiti, grime, foul odors and scary people ready to snap, as on other cities' subway systems, my only complaint about the L.A. subway is that I can't get to ride it more often!

It's the kind of audacious but small-stakes insider trading that normally wouldn't have merited much attention. Golfing buddies Scott London and Bryan Shaw netted just $1.3 million, a blip in a world where Wall Street kingpins pocket hundreds of millions in ill-gotten gains. The two men made one misstep after another. Their haplessness virtually guaranteed they'd get nailed, experts said. The scope of their ill-fated caper was made clear Thursday when federal prosecutors in Los Angeles filed a criminal charge against London, alleging that he passed insider tips to Shaw from 2010 to 2013.

The nation's airlines reported more delayed flights and a higher rate of mishandled luggage in February while complaints by passengers jumped nearly 30%. Meanwhile, complaints against airport security agents dropped slightly. Airlines reported an on-time arrival rate of 79.6% in February, compared with an 86.2% rate in the same month in 2012, according to statistics released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The rate of delayed or mishandled bags grew to three bags for every 1,000 passengers in February from a rate of 2.64 bags in the same month last year, according to the federal agency.