O Donnell Gordon

California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, who was defeated at the polls in November, announced Friday that he is joining the Los Angeles-based law firm of O'Donnell & Gordon, where he said he will perform a variety of trial and appellate work, including cases related to the new federal immigration law. Reynoso, 55, leaves the bench after serving more than 10 years on the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. He was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1982 by former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, who was defeated at the polls in November, announced Friday that he is joining the Los Angeles-based law firm of O'Donnell & Gordon, where he said he will perform a variety of trial and appellate work, including cases related to the new federal immigration law. Reynoso, 55, leaves the bench after serving more than 10 years on the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. He was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1982 by former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

The Los Angeles law firm of O'Donnell & Gordon has signed a lease valued at $1.3 million for the top floor or 12,250 square feet of the newly renovated One Bunker Hill building at 601 West 5th St.

More than $19,000 in back taxes are owed the federal government by the former owner and former general manager of the defunct Wyoming Wildcatters of the Continental Basketball Assn., according to the government. A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court here claims that former owner John O'Donnell of Corona del Mar, and former General Manager Jeffrey Gordon, now living in Nevada, are responsible for $19,428.58 in unpaid withholding taxes.

Mark D. Fabiani, the lawyer named Monday as Mayor Tom Bradley's chief of staff, is described by friends and rivals alike as a Harvard-educated "boy wonder," who has risen fast by making the right political connections and delivering on the job. But in some quarters, there are still doubts that Fabiani, 32, has the political and management experience necessary to effectively make the leap from legal adviser to the chief of staff for the mayor of the nation's second-largest city.

For decades, Ben Gross treated the elderly tenants of his beachfront hotel like family. Free rides to the doctor, an occasional bag of fresh fish in the refrigerator, card parties on Saturday nights and low rents that never went up. Then he died, and the Cadillac Hotel in Venice soon passed into new hands. Shortly after taking ownership in 1983, Werner Scharff posted signs telling residents to move to make way for renovation.

For decades, Ben Gross treated the elderly tenants of his beachfront hotel like family. Free rides to the doctor, an occasional bag of fresh fish in the refrigerator, card parties on Saturday nights and low rents that never went up. Then he died, and the Cadillac hotel in Venice soon passed into new hands. Shortly after taking ownership in 1983, Werner Scharff posted signs telling residents to move to make way for renovation.

"When there is an income tax," Plato said, "the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income." Twenty-three centuries later, the Treasury Department has concluded much the same. It doesn't buy the Greek philosopher's premise that income taxes and justice are mutually exclusive, of course. But in its mission of tax reform, the Treasury has acknowledged that injustice runs deep in the tax laws and must be routed out.

When insurers began routinely canceling liability policies for California's 37,000 licensed day-care homes, volunteer lawyers Barrett S. Litt and Michael S. Magnuson sued. An appellate court enjoined the wholesale cancellations, and 250,000 children continued to have safe places to go after school. When an "insurance" contract written in English covered the seller's loss but failed to pay for the replacement of a Latino family's stolen videocassette recorder, Los Angeles-based Frederick L.