Liability

The presidential panel investigating the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico wants more funding for oversight, allocation of penalty payments to gulf restoration, and a lifting of the $75-million liability cap on oil firms. The presidential commission investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill called on Congress, the Obama administration and the oil and gas sector Tuesday to make sweeping changes based on practices in other industries and petroleum-producing countries to avert a repeat of the deadly Deepwater Horizon offshore disaster.

Question: I live in a town house with a tennis court. Children also live here and use the courts to run around in and underneath the nets, treating it as a playground. These children do not play tennis and they are not accompanied by adults. I complained to the board but was informed there is a new California law that prohibits discrimination against children. I am not discriminating against them, I just don't want damage done to the court or complex, whether caused by an adult or a child.

The sale of Nicolas Cage's onetime Bel-Air estate, which the actor lost to foreclosure this year, has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. There was hubris, bad taste and a dizzying fall from financial grace. The closing scene played out this week when a new owner picked up the sprawling mansion for $10.5 million, a relative bargain for a trophy home that had been listed several years ago at more than three times that amount. The buyer was identified only as a limited liability company, a common cloaking device in high-profile real estate transactions.

Question: It is my understanding that homeowners associations are required to carry insurance coverage to protect the titleholders and those who serve on the board from liability for actions conducted by board directors in good faith during the ordinary course of business. I'm on my homeowners association's board and we do carry this insurance for the directors and our third-party property management company. One of our three directors believes we don't need this coverage since all the individual homeowners have their own liability insurance, and he has proposed dropping this coverage to save around $5,000 a year.

President Obama will not sign a bill that could hurt homeowners seeking to challenge mortgage foreclosures, the White House announced Thursday. At his briefing, spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama would use a pocket veto to prevent the bill, which passed both the House and the Senate, from becoming law. A pocket veto is when the president refuses to sign a bill. Designed as a consumer bill, the foreclosure measure could save banks and other mortgage processors from liability in how a foreclosure is processed.

The dispute over who owns the Dodgers may turn on one word. It is the 12th word of the second paragraph of the first exhibit of an agreement signed by Frank and Jamie McCourt six years ago. If that word is "inclusive," Frank could be the sole owner of the Dodgers. If that word is "exclusive," Jamie could be the co-owner. Three copies of the agreement say "inclusive. " Three copies say "exclusive. " Frank and Jamie have both said they were not aware of the different wording until this year.

PG&E Corp. told federal regulators Friday that its utility has nearly $1 billion in fire insurance to cover liabilities from the deadly natural gas pipeline blast in San Bruno, but added that its financial condition "could be materially adversely affected" if the insurance coverage falls short or isn't available. Skittish investors fled PG&E's stock, wiping out about $1 billion in the San Francisco company's market value on Friday. PG&E shares plunged $4.03, or 8.4%, to $44.21 in heavy trading.

The city's bid to enlist the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as a key player in conserving the Watts Towers has hit a snag as LACMA seeks a guarantee that it won't be held financially liable for any damage to the folk-art masterpiece that might result if its work on the towers were to go awry. As a matter of policy, when LACMA takes on an art conservation project for an outside owner, it requires insurance or a legal guarantee relieving it of any financial responsibility for damage, Barbara Pflaumer, the museum's spokeswoman, said Wednesday.

After a long, bruising political battle, the lower house of India's parliament on Wednesday passed a civilian nuclear liability bill that would pave the way for American and other foreign companies to join a nuclear-reactor building spree. As if to punctuate the need for more electricity generation in a nation where power outages are a daily event, the lights went out in the Parliament building just as the bill was brought to a vote. "This is why we need nuclear energy," said one lawmaker to general laughter.

Metrolink and its former train operating contractor on Wednesday offered to pay $200 million to victims of the 2008 Chatsworth rail disaster that killed 25 people, setting the stage for one of the costliest rail accident settlements in the nation's history. The proposed settlement fund, if approved by the courts, would relieve Metrolink and private contractor Connex Railroad of any additional liability, which federal law currently caps at a total of $200 million for passenger rail accidents.