Plaintiffs

In these troubled economic times, it's not hard to understand why people might want to protect their life savings by purchasing a hard asset like gold or silver. At least, that's the pitch of Monex, the big Newport Beach investment firm, which bills itself as "America's trusted name in precious metals investments" and assures clients that it's "committed to customer service. " So let's take a look at the experiences of some customers who say their trust in Monex was misplaced.

NEW YORK - To Pedro Serrano, a New York City police officer, his low rate of stopping and frisking people while patrolling the South Bronx was a sign he was exercising restraint in using the controversial law enforcement technique. His bosses saw it differently. To them, Serrano's 2012 record of just two stop-and-frisks suggested he was not doing enough to protect people in the crime-ridden 40th Precinct, whose residents are mostly black and Latino. "We're still one of the most violent commands in the city," Serrano's commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack, said during a heated conversation in February, which Serrano secretly recorded.

A breach-of-contract suit filed against comedian Adam Carolla by three former business associates suggests that the new media world may not be all that different from old Hollywood. Producer Donny Misraje -- who claims to have persuaded the radio and television personality and longtime friend to use podcasts to reach his listeners -- filed suit against Carolla on Thursday in Superior Court in Los Angeles.  Misraje is joined in the suit by his wife, Kathee Schneider-Misraje, a creative director, and Sandy Ganz, who helped rebuild and maintain websites for the company's podcasts and co-hosted a show, "CarCast," with Carolla.  The trio allege Carolla failed to distribute their share of the profits in the podcasting business -- or even provide an accurate accounting of the books -- in violation of an oral partnership agreement.

On the steps of the Supreme Court, moments after their attorneys argued that gays and lesbians should be given the constitutional right to marry Tuesday, California plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case said they are looking forward to the high court's ruling. “Like all Americans, I believe in equality,” said Sandy Stier, who has been waiting more than a decade to marry her partner, Kris Perry. “But more than anything, I believe in love.” FULL COVERAGE: Same-sex marriage ban Stier said Prop.

In a stunning turnaround for an act of Congress, a judge ruled Wednesday that a counterterrorism provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual defense appropriations bill, is unconstitutional. Federal district Judge Katherine B. Forrest issued an injunction against use of the provision on behalf of a group of journalists and activists who had filed suit in March, claiming it would chill free speech. In her decision published Wednesday, Forrest, in the Southern District of New York, ruled that Section 1021 of NDAA was facially unconstitutional - a rare finding - because of the potential that it could violate the 1st Amendment.

On the steps of the Supreme Court, moments after their attorneys argued that gays and lesbians should be given the constitutional right to marry Tuesday, California plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case said they are looking forward to the high court's ruling. “Like all Americans, I believe in equality,” said Sandy Stier, who has been waiting more than a decade to marry her partner, Kris Perry. “But more than anything, I believe in love.” FULL COVERAGE: Same-sex marriage ban Stier said Prop.

Like President Obama, David Blankenhorn has been changing his opinion about same-sex marriage. In his case, the change of mind looks more like a revolution than an evolution. Blankenhorn was one of two witnesses for the defense in the federal suit against Proposition 8, California's ban on gay marriage. But in an online opinion piece for the New York Times, Blankenhorn favors recognizing such unions as marriages. The switch isn't quite as dramatic as it might at first seem.

Plaintiffs' attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner was in her Jerusalem office in July when she got news of the Puerto Rican court's verdict. A judge there had just issued a $378-million civil judgment for her clients: the families of 17 Puerto Rican missionaries killed by Japanese Red Army militants at an Israeli airport in 1972. Yet her euphoria was tempered by pragmatic reality: She would have to try to collect the judgment from a defiant North Korea, which the judge ruled had decades ago given training and support to the assailants.

Regarding "Home Plans Ruled Too Different" by Robert J. Bruss, Oct. 14: The ruling by the U.S. District Court [in John Alden Homes Inc. vs. Kangas, 142 Fed.Supp.2d 1338] was correct for the grounds of the suit. However, the plaintiff's attorney sued for the wrong cause of action, which should have been "unjust enrichment." It is the "use" of the design without compensation to the original designer that would have resulted in the plaintiffs' winning their case. Suits of "unjust enrichment" have been successful against singing groups and large corporations.

Girding for a court fight against a wing of aerospace giant Boeing, attorneys for nearly 100 neighbors of the Rocketdyne division's Santa Susana Field Laboratory plan to discuss their legal strategy tonight in Simi Valley. The meeting on the neighbors' lawsuit is set for 6:30 p.m. at the Rancho Santa Susana Community Center, 5005 Los Angeles Ave. Ten neighbors sued Boeing North American Inc. in March, alleging that decades of nuclear and chemical research at the mountaintop Rocketdyne complex near Simi Valley poisoned their land and water and caused them to contract cancer.

Healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson played "Russian roulette" with patient safety by ignoring high failure rates and surgeons' complaints about its once-popular artificial hip, a Los Angeles jury was told during closing arguments at a high-stakes medical trial for the company. Jurors heard arguments from both sides Thursday in a case that pits the world's biggest seller of medical products against Loren Kransky, a 65-year-old former prison guard in Montana who claims he suffered metal poisoning and other health problems from the company's ASR XL hip implant he received in 2007.

When Congress and the executive branch collude to keep Americans in the dark about whether their privacy is being invaded, the Supreme Court should be willing to lift the veil of secrecy - at least to the extent of forcing the government to explain how often it is monitoring the confidential conversations of Americans. The court abdicated that important watchdog role Tuesday when it ruled 5 to 4 that a group of journalists, lawyers and activists couldn't challenge the constitutionality of a shadowy electronic surveillance program.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a broad lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the government's program of secret wiretapping of international phone calls and emails, ruling that none of the plaintiffs has “standing” to sue because they cannot prove their messages were intercepted. The 5-4 ruling is the latest of many that has shielded the government's anti-terrorism programs from being challenged in court. Over the past decade, the justices have repeatedly killed or quietly ended lawsuits that sought to expose or contest anti-terrorism programs, including secret surveillance, mass arrests of immigrants from the Mideast and drone strikes that killed American citizens abroad.

NEW ORLEANS - Energy giant BP, behind schedule and $50 million over budget drilling a deep-water well, emphasized cost-cutting over safety, causing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, lawyers said Monday as the company's high-stakes civil trial began. Lawyers used PowerPoint presentations to provide a dramatic recounting of the April 20, 2010, explosion and fire in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 crew members. Workers were preparing to temporarily cap the Macondo well 4,100 feet underwater when it blew up. The 30-story drilling vessel about 50 miles offshore burned for two days before crumpling into the gulf.

A breach-of-contract suit filed against comedian Adam Carolla by three former business associates suggests that the new media world may not be all that different from old Hollywood. Producer Donny Misraje -- who claims to have persuaded the radio and television personality and longtime friend to use podcasts to reach his listeners -- filed suit against Carolla on Thursday in Superior Court in Los Angeles.  Misraje is joined in the suit by his wife, Kathee Schneider-Misraje, a creative director, and Sandy Ganz, who helped rebuild and maintain websites for the company's podcasts and co-hosted a show, "CarCast," with Carolla.  The trio allege Carolla failed to distribute their share of the profits in the podcasting business -- or even provide an accurate accounting of the books -- in violation of an oral partnership agreement.

Accusing Wells Fargo & Co. of reneging on a sweeping mortgage-modification deal, a lawyer for troubled homeowners is trying to reopen a lawsuit involving risky "pick-a-pay" loans written during the housing bubble. Legal filings last week said Wells had failed to provide wide-ranging reductions of loan balances to delinquent borrowers, as it had promised two years ago, when it settled a combined national class-action suit. A bank spokeswoman disputed the filing, calling it riddled with errors.

Nine lawsuits accusing the California Department of Transportation of contributing to the 1983 landslide at Malibu's Big Rock Mesa must go to trial by Aug. 28 because the plaintiffs are over 70 years old, the state Court of Appeal has ruled. Four other suits with plaintiffs over 70 also will probably proceed but were not part of the appellate court decision, said attorney Kenneth Chiate, who represents about 50 of more than 200 Big Rock families suing various government agencies.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has given preliminary approval to a $4.75-million settlement between Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group and what could be as many as 300 aging and deceased recording artists who are owed royalties. An attorney for the lead plaintiff, torch singer Peggy Lee, said it was the first class-action lawsuit to accuse a record company of employing questionable accounting tactics to cheat artists of royalties dating as far back as the 1940s.

SAN FRANCISCO - Capt. Zoe Bedell graduated at the top of her Marine Corps officer candidates class. In deployments to Afghanistan, she oversaw "female engagement teams" that accompanied male infantry units into the field - living and working in identical conditions. Yet since 1994, the Defense Department has formally excluded women from most direct ground combat positions, creating a growing disconnect with the realities of warfare. Bedell said she left active duty last year because the policy limited her potential for promotion by failing to officially recognize her combat leadership experience.

Proposition 37 , the ballot measure to require labeling of genetically modified foods sold in California, includes a provision that allows anyone to sue over a product that allegedly should have been so labeled but wasn't. In that sense it is an indirect descendant of a 2004 ballot measure that changed California's unfair competition law. If it passes, it would ever so slightly roll back that measure. Some explanation is in order. California was once famous, or perhaps notorious, for how easy it was for plaintiffs to sue under what lawyers refer to as Business and Professions Code Sec. 17200 -- and what everyone else calls the unfair competition law. It used to be that if you wanted to sue a business for, say, advertising that the product it was selling was "Made in the USA" when some components may have been foreign made, you could.