Liability

As the scandal over two Miramonte Elementary School teachers accused of committing lewd acts on children grows, it's becoming clear the Los Angeles Unified School District faces a heavy financial cost. Miramonte will reopen Thursday with an all-new slate of teachers and administrators as well as custodians and cafeteria workers. But L.A. Unified will continue to pay the old staff even as they wait out the investigations at a high school under construction a few miles away. It remains unclear how long this arrangement will last; the investigations are expected to take months to complete.

The Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday asked a federal bankruptcy judge to reject all claims for damages filed by San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow over his severe beating in a Dodger Stadium parking lot on Opening Day of the 2011 season. Attorneys for the team and its owner, Frank McCourt, argued that none of the entities in the baseball club's corporate structure have any liability for the March 31 assault that left Stow in a coma for months. Stow sued the Dodgers in May, alleging negligence and poor security arrangements at the ballpark.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Friday it no longer would settle civil suits without an admission of liability in cases in which the defendant has been convicted of criminal violations or admitted to them. The policy change comes after a federal judge in November rejected a $285 million settlement between the SEC and Citigroup Inc. in which liability was neither admitted nor denied. The judge  harshly criticized the agency for imposing a "relatively modest" punishment on large banks for wrongdoing leading up to the financial crisis.

Dear Liz: Do you have any resources available for young widows with children? My husband died 10 months ago and I am struggling to make sense of my financial situation, which is complicated because of debt. I would be so grateful for help. Answer: Widows and widowers are often advised not to make any big decisions in the first year of their bereavement. Unfortunately, bill collectors aren't willing to wait that long. You need to determine your liability for your late husband's debts.

Buy team, make money. That's the tried-and-true formula in major professional sports, where even an owner who loses money running his team can cash in when he sells. Frank McCourt should be Exhibit A for this theory. McCourt bought the Dodgers for $421 million seven years ago, and the team arguably has doubled in value since then. Yet McCourt's decision to take the Dodgers into bankruptcy means he could be forced to walk away from the team with absolutely nothing. "What makes the Dodgers situation so striking is that this shouldn't be happening in a major market.

A handful of residents living along a busy stretch of Glendale Avenue say city officials are forcing them to take down mirrors they've attached to trees in the public right-of-way so they can better see oncoming traffic while exiting their driveways. The residents, who live north of the Ventura Freeway, say that in the absence of any speed-reduction enhancements — such as humps — the convex mirrors are one of the few safety measures they have. City officials, though, say the mirrors aren't allowed on city-owned trees.

Reporting from Sacramento -- Earlier this year, with the scandal-plagued city of Vernon dominating headlines, Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez took the unusual step of working the floor in the Legislature's other house, buttonholing fellow Democrats to endorse his bill to dissolve the industrial enclave in his Los-Angeles based district. He placed the bill before senators one by one, handed them a pen and watched them sign. It was a signal to lawmakers that the measure was a priority for the man in what is commonly referred to as the second most powerful post in California government.

Surfboard manufacturers have a number of concerns — heavy competition, expensive shipping and employees who occasionally like to slip out early when there's a good break. Product liability lawsuits typically aren't one of their worries. That's what makes a lawsuit that recreational surfer Tom Gregg filed against Channel Islands Surfboards a little unusual. Gregg contends that a fin on his Channel Islands board cut a deep gash on his right leg when he wiped out off the coast of France in 2009.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca isn't shielded from liability for racial gang violence in the jails he supervises, a federal appeals court ruled Monday in sending a stabbing victim's lawsuit to trial. Dion Starr, who says he was stabbed 23 times by Latino gang members while in custody at Men's Central Jail five years ago, alleges in his lawsuit that Baca showed "deliberate indifference" to the dangerous conditions in the jails. Baca knew or should have known about the hazards posed to guards and inmates as they were brought to his attention by a special investigator's report that the county lockups were "outdated, understaffed and riddled with security flaws," Starr's suit contends.