Suits

Two Los Angeles County residents have sued Toyota Motor Corp., alleging that the majority of Toyota and Lexus vehicles made since 2001 contain defective components that can cause unintended acceleration. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Riverside County Superior Court, is the latest in a growing string of suits against the automaker over concerns of runaway acceleration. The plaintiffs, Seong Bae Choi and Chris Chan Park, seek statewide and national class-action status, arguing that "hundreds of thousands" of individuals could be affected by sudden acceleration caused by defective electronic throttle systems.

Hollywood rehab can produce unhappy endings, even when the patient isn't named Lindsay or Britney. That's what Kelly Logan learned when he sought treatment for a methamphetamine addiction at Promises Malibu, detox destination to the stars. Logan's brother, Garfield, says he paid $42,000 up front to admit the former professional surfer for a month at Promises' canyon-top Mediterranean-style home. Five days later, he says, Promises kicked Logan out for belligerent behavior but kept all the money.

After a Lutheran school expelled two 16-year-old girls for having "a bond of intimacy" that was "characteristic of a lesbian relationship," the girls sued, contending the school had violated a state anti-discrimination law. In response to that suit, an appeals court decided this week that the private religious school was not a business and therefore did not have to comply with a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminating.

The host of a popular Persian-language radio talk show was accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of defrauding investors out of more than $20 million in a long-running investment scheme that targeted the Iranian American community. In a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Los Angeles, the SEC accused John Farahi; his wife, Gissou Rastegar Farahi; and their company, NewPoint Financial Services, of losing millions of dollars in volatile investments they had promoted as safe.

California is rapidly losing families willing to care for foster children because its payment rate lags far behind the cost of living and is lower than the price to kennel a dog, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that mirrored the findings of a new national study. The lawsuit was launched by a coalition of advocates for foster families in U.S.

Since the Raiders and Rams left Southern California after the 1994 season, several developers have come forward with grand but ultimately unrealized plans for bringing the NFL back to Los Angeles. Plans have been floated for stadiums in Carson, downtown Los Angeles, Anaheim and Pasadena's Rose Bowl. But at least for now, the proposal attracting the attention of state and local officials is developer Ed Roski Jr.'s plan to build an $800-million NFL stadium near the junction of the 57 and 60 freeways in the City of Industry.

"Project Runway" fans hoping for a resolution to the legal stalemate that has kept the show off the air indefinitely will have to bide their time for a while. The future of the popular fashion design competition is still mired in lawsuits and cross-complaints, stemming from a decision last spring by producer Weinstein Co. to move the show from Bravo to Lifetime Television. Bravo parent company NBC Universal immediately sued Weinstein Co. for breach of contract.

The Environmental Protection Agency would require oil- and coal-burning power plants to dramatically reduce hazardous air pollution under an agreement announced Friday that ends a long-standing lawsuit filed by environmentalists. The agreement -- which would probably boost electricity prices but could potentially save thousands of lives -- commits the EPA to set pollution standards by 2011 for the power plants that are responsible for nearly half of all emissions of mercury, which can harm brain development in fetuses and children.

A decade ago, in the World Wide Web's formative days, Gary Kremen registered "sex.com" with the company that keeps the rolls of the world's commercial domain names. One year later, a con man filched the rights, and Kremen set off on one of the Internet's longest-running legal battles. Now the lawsuit has been put to bed. VeriSign Inc. has agreed to settle Kremen's federal suit, the two sides said Tuesday. The Mountain View, Calif.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for more than four years has been quietly replacing thousands of failed tires fitted on vans, light trucks and sport-utility vehicles and writing checks to customers, but only for those who complain, according to tire dealers and consumers.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.