Curtin Matheson Scientific

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed a federal appeals court ruling on union representation in strike-torn companies that had been regarded as potentially disastrous to organized labor. By a 5-4 margin, the court reversed a ruling that said the National Labor Relations Board must presume strikebreakers oppose the strikers' union. Such a presumption would have, in effect, permitted a business to automatically withdraw recognition of a striking union once it had hired permanent replacements.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed a federal appeals court ruling on union representation in strike-torn companies that had been regarded as potentially disastrous to organized labor. By a 5-4 margin, the court reversed a ruling that said the National Labor Relations Board must presume strikebreakers oppose the strikers' union. Such a presumption would have, in effect, permitted a business to automatically withdraw recognition of a striking union once it had hired permanent replacements.

Davstar Industries Ltd. said Thursday that it has signed a multiyear distribution contract to sell its brand-name Cen-Slide 60 urinalysis system to doctors, nurses and hospitals across the nation. The Newport Beach company, which introduced the product last fall, said Curtin Matheson Scientific Inc. has agreed to distribute the system nationally along with Davstar's current regional distributors in the West, the South and the Northeast.

Bright Spots: It's not all negative out there, however. Collins Fuller Corp., a Southern California brokerage, said its Newport Beach office in the past week has handled a $3-million industrial lease in Garden Grove and two transactions in Yorba Linda worth a total of $10 million. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., developer of the 200-acre Savi Ranch Business Park in Yorba Linda, just sold 11.7 acres to Hamilton Co., a Newport Beach developer, for $7.3 million.

A partnership led by Newport Beach-based real estate firm Layton-Belling & Associates has bought Yorba Linda's largest business park, 341,446-square-foot Savi Tech Center, for $23.6 million. The sale price set a record for industrial buildings in the area, according to Mitch Zehner of Voit Commercial Brokerage, who represented the buyers and sellers in the deal. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.

Executives at Creative Computer Applications, a Calabasas-based computer equipment and software company, were hoping things would be different this year. In the last 2 years, CCA had suffered because of marketing and product problems while its losses skyrocketed and its stock fell from more than $2 a share to 16 cents in February. At the time, CCA's executives conceded that 1988 would be a do or die year for the company.

Right in the center of Steven Besbeck's desk is a gigantic, plaster aspirin. "I need it," said Besbeck. "There are a lot of headaches in business." Particularly in Besbeck's business. He is president of Creative Computer Applications, a Calabasas company whose recent stock and financial performance could give any executive a migraine. Two years ago, CCA's stock was trading at more than $2 a share.