CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
February 6, 2010 | By Catherine Saillant
An arbitrator has awarded $748,022 to former Santa Barbara News Press Editor Jerry Roberts to cover his legal costs in a years-long legal battle with his former employer, New Press owner Wendy McCaw, documents released Friday show. Arbitrator Deborah Rothman rejected all claims by McCaw's company, Ampersand Publishing, that Roberts violated his employment contract after his 2006 resignation by talking about McCaw's alleged interference in the newsroom. Roberts' departure sparked an exodus of editors, reporters and photographers from the paper.
BUSINESS
February 5, 2010 | By Stuart Pfeifer
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday dropped a stock-options backdating lawsuit against four Broadcom Corp. figures, the latest legal victory for the Irvine chip company. SEC attorney Molly M. White said the commission chose not to pursue the litigation against Broadcom co-founders Henry Samueli and Henry T. Nicholas III and two former executives "after careful consideration" of comments that a judge made about the case at a hearing in January. The lawsuit, filed in 2008 in the Santa Ana federal courthouse, had sought civil penalties against the men for failing to disclose that they had backdated stock-option grants.
BUSINESS
January 30, 2010 | By Richard Verrier
The rise and fall of Jean- Marie Messier's debt-ridden media empire is an old story in Hollywood, but the company's shareholders are still smarting over their losses. A jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan offered them some consolation Friday, finding that Paris-based Vivendi misled investors about the company's financial health from 2000 to 2002. The federal jury found the company liable on all 57 counts of violating U.S. securities laws stemming from one of several class-action lawsuits brought by angry shareholders.
BUSINESS
January 29, 2010 | By Stuart Pfeifer
Launched amid titillating allegations of drug abuse, illicit sex and ill-gotten gains, the federal government's prosecution of Broadcom Corp. executives came to a whimpering conclusion Thursday when a judge threw out the remaining charges against company co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III. U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney granted prosecutors' request to dismiss drug distribution charges against Nicholas -- six weeks after he dismissed criminal charges...
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 29, 2010 | By Margot Roosevelt
Will clear-cutting forests increase global warming? That's a contentious issue as California, which is seeking to slash its carbon footprint, wrestles over rules to manage the state's private forests. The Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based environmental group, this week filed lawsuits against the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in seven California counties to halt logging plans for 5,000 acres across the Sierra Nevada and Cascade regions. The group contends that the agency approved the projects without properly analyzing carbon emissions and climate consequences under the California Environmental Quality Act. "Clear-cutting is an abysmal practice that should have been banned long ago due to its impacts on wildlife and water quality," said Brian Nowicki, the group's California climate policy director.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 27, 2010 | By Lisa Girion
Kristen Spears started getting Botox injections at the age of 6 -- not to smooth furrows in her brow, but to calm spasms in her legs. The girl was born with severe cerebral palsy, and Botox, best known as a face-lift-in-a-syringe, can relax contorted muscles and sometimes help young patients walk without surgery. Instead, Kristen's mother alleges, an overdose of the drug killed her. Opening arguments in a negligence lawsuit by Dee Spears against Botox manufacturer Allergan Inc. are set for today in Orange County.
BUSINESS
January 23, 2010 | By Richard Verrier
A long and winding legal battle that raised uncomfortable questions about Hollywood's treatment of middle-aged and older TV writers was settled Friday, a decade after a class-action lawsuit alleged they were the victims of widespread age discrimination. Under the settlement, 17 major networks and production studios, along with seven talent agencies, agreed to pay $70 million to thousands of writers to resolve 19 claims. A group of 165 writers alleged that the networks, studios and talent agencies unfairly squeezed out writers older than 40 in their efforts to capture younger audiences, denying them employment on dramas and situation comedies.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 23, 2010 | By Scott Glover
An Irvine man who says he worked as an undercover informant for the FBI, most notably as a Muslim convert in an anti-terrorism case, filed a lawsuit Friday accusing his law enforcement handlers of violating his civil rights and endangering his life. Craig Monteilh, 47, says he worked as an informant for the FBI from 2004 through 2008, providing information and assistance in narcotics, bank robbery and murder for hire investigations before being asked to go undercover as part of an anti-terrorist effort in Orange County, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 19, 2010 | By Tony Perry
In the years since their daughter Marla was killed by a Hamas suicide bomber in Jerusalem, Michael and Linda Bennett have had somewhat differing reactions. Linda Bennett has been back twice to Israel, to look at the memorials for her daughter and the other victims of the July 31, 2002, attack at Hebrew University and even to see the cafeteria where it took place. Not to go, she said, would be to surrender to terrorism. Michael Bennett cannot bring himself to visit Israel because he will sense Marla's presence everywhere and his pain will only increase.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 18, 2010 | By Alan Zarembo
Families with autistic children in eastern Los Angeles County have filed a class-action lawsuit against the nonprofit agency that provides them with state-funded services, alleging that it had illegally discontinued their therapy for the disorder. The agency, the Eastern Los Angeles County Regional Center, informed more than 100 families late last summer that their children were losing the therapy -- known as the DIR model, or "developmental, individual difference, relationship-based" -- as a result of state budget cuts.