Settlements

The Los Angeles City Council approved a $20.5-million settlement Wednesday to bring to a close lawsuits brought by four Los Angeles Police officers who alleged that they were falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted during the city's Rampart police corruption scandal that began in the late 1990s.

Pablo Nuñez, a carpenter by trade, says he is accustomed to working 10-hour shifts, sometimes six days a week, on home-building sites throughout Southern California. But legally mandated overtime pay was almost as unheard of at job sites, he says, as visits from labor inspectors. "The only person getting overtime might be the brother of the foreman," Nuñez said. The Corona resident is among 85 residential construction workers from California, Nevada and Arizona who will share $242,301 in unpaid wages after settling a federal lawsuit last month against a major home-builder, Boise, Idaho-based Building Materials Holding Corp.

The owner of the Glendale Galleria shopping mall has agreed to pay a $48-million legal settlement to developer Rick Caruso, owner of the competing Americana at Brand shopping complex. The settlement ends an appeal by Galleria owner General Growth Properties of a 2007 court decision ordering the company to pay Caruso's firm $89 million for trying to prevent a restaurant chain from locating in the Americana.

California's attorney general has settled a lawsuit against H&R Block Inc. over a widely used loan program that gives the nation's largest tax preparer a chunk of customers' tax refunds. Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said Friday that the $4.85-million settlement would stop H&R Block from offering high-cost loans it had marketed as early tax refunds. Former Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer sued H&R Block in 2006, adding California to a long list of others that sued over its "refund anticipation loans."

A videotape shows two Hawthorne police officers slapping high-fives in the aftermath of an arrest in which one of their co-workers allegedly kicked a handcuffed suspect in the face, breaking his jaw. Confronted with the videotape, which was recorded at the city's jail, Hawthorne officials last week paid $1 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the 25-year-old suspect, Anthony Goodrow.

Nearly six years after the collapse of WorldCom Inc., the Securities and Exchange Commission barred two former Arthur Andersen auditors from practicing before the agency in settlements of claims that they inadequately scrutinized the 2001 earnings as the communications company was defrauding investors. Melvin Dick, 54, and Kenneth Avery, 41, should have arranged more thorough audits after learning WorldCom executives had reason and opportunity to deceive shareholders, the SEC said Monday.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis reached a financial settlement with six men who claimed they were sexually molested by five priests as far back as the 1960s, victims' advocacy group SNAP said. The men will be paid $312,500, with individual settlements of $20,000 to $90,000, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests reported. The group said the settlements were finalized in recent weeks through mediation. An attorney for the archdiocese confirmed that several abuse cases had been resolved.

Three powerful technology companies have banded together to oppose Google Inc.'s proposed settlement with the Authors Guild and the Assn. of American Publishers over the Internet search giant's book scanning project. Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have signed on to a coalition being assembled by the Internet Archive and Gary Reback, a Silicon Valley antitrust lawyer, said Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive, a San Francisco nonprofit that is trying to build a free digital library of Internet content.

Clearing the way to move forward with its two planned films of "The Hobbit," Warner Bros. resolved a nasty legal battle with the heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien over profit from the "Lord of the Rings" films. Last year, two of Tolkien's children, Christopher, 84, and Priscilla, 80, sued New Line, now a unit of Warner Bros., for an estimated $150 million that they claimed was owed from the three "Lord of the Rings" movies, which amassed $2.96 billion at the worldwide box office and at least $3 billion in DVD and other ancillary sales, according to the lawsuit.

Health Net Inc. has agreed to pay California hospitals at least $1.95 million for care delivered to patients whom the insurer later dropped. The settlement, pending a judge's approval, resolves a lawsuit filed by California hospitals to recover payments they say the Woodland Hills company improperly withheld after canceling the coverage of hundreds of patients.