Lawsuit

GLENDALE — A lawsuit against a Glendale hotel that alleges three women suffered more than 100 bites from “blood-engorged bed bugs” crawling on infested beds soon will go trial, attorneys for the women said. The plaintiffs — Nicole Eatman, Vera Domini and Regina Martocci — are suing Rodeway Inn-Regalodge Motel, at 200 W. Colorado St. and its franchiser, Choice Hotels International Inc., after staying for three nights in a room that was allegedly infested with adult bed bugs and their larvae, according a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

A U.S. District Court judge this week dismissed a lawsuit brought by an attorney who claimed a former Glendale police officer began having an affair with his wife after he was arrested for a criminal case that was ultimately dropped. In granting summary judgment for the city and former officer Michael Lizarraga, Judge Dolly M. Gee determined that the attorney, Robert Yousefian, had failed to raise any “triable” issues in his claims. Yousefian alleged Lizarraga, Det. Petros Kmbikyan and the city had violated his civil rights, but Gee stated that he failed to identify the constitutional rights of which he was deprived.

Glendale successfully fended off a legal attempt this week by its largest employee union to reverse a 2010 contract that reduced pay and retirement benefits. The preliminary victory means the city isn't liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in back wages - for now. The Glendale City Employees Assn. can still appeal the decision by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to throw out the union's lawsuit that claimed Glendale engaged in unfair bargaining practices. “This is a challenge to the city's decision in 2010 to implement the terms in 2010,” City Atty.

Four current and a former Glendale Armenian American police officers can move forward with their federal discrimination and harassment lawsuit against the city after a judge last week refused to throw out the claims. U.S. District Court Judge Josephine Tucker denied most of the city's motion to throw out the claims, although some that were filed against certain police commanders were dropped. “We were confident that the ruling would occur as it has,” the officers' attorney Carney Shegerian said in an email.

A wildlife sanctuary in Colorado that was blocked by state officials there from taking in the Glendale bear known as Meatball filed a lawsuit Tuesday in an effort to overturn a regulation it claims is being invoked at the expense of the beloved 400-pound bruin getting the best possible home. Colorado wildlife officials have said a state regulation prohibits wild animals such as Meatball from being kept at sanctuaries. Their counterparts in California agree, saying there are no plans to transport the bear to the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado, which filed the lawsuit in Denver.

Josh Kleinbaum When the city released the first version of the environmental impact report for the Town Center, Councilman Dave Weaver described it as one of the best he had ever seen. The city paid more than $500,000 to have an independent consultant put together the three-volume, seven-inch-thick document, which analyzes the effects of the 15.5-acre residential and retail project on the community. In a 108-page lawsuit filed Monday, General Growth Properties, owners of the Glendale Galleria, rip the document, saying that it is nothing more than a rubber stamp for developer Rick Caruso's project, not an unbiased guide for the City Council.

Buck Wargo CITY HALL -- The Glendale City Council has given the go-ahead to file a lawsuit against a contracting firm that wentbankrupt before it could improve access to the Golden State (5) Freeway. The council voted 4-0 Tuesday to allow City Atty. Scott Howard to file a lawsuit against Hillside Contractors Inc. of Stanton. The company was hired in December to install a traffic light on Colorado Street at Kenilworth Drive and make other improvements for access to the freeway.

Jackson Bell A Metrolink civil lawsuit seeking damages against the man accused of causing last week's fatal train crash may just be a move to protect the transit agency from litigation, some law experts say. A train heading toward downtown Los Angeles on Jan. 26 derailed when it hit a Grand Jeep Cherokee parked on the tracks, smashing into another Metrolink train killing 11 and injuring nearly 200. Juan Manuel Alvarez,...

The ACLU of Southern California today plans to announce a lawsuit against Glendale police and school district officials alleging racial profiling and harassment of Latino students at Hoover High School. In complaints filed earlier this year with, and eventually rejected by, the Glendale Unified School District, the ACLU claims 56 Hoover High students were rounded up at lunch in September 2010 and detained for up to 90 minutes in two separate classrooms. All the students were Latino or Latino in appearance, indicating clear racial profiling, according to the complaints.

Karen S. Kim A lawsuit filed against Montrose Shopping Park Assn. by a local farmers' trade organization has been put on hold, at least for a few weeks. A request by the shopping park that the hearing of its small claims court case be postponed from Monday until Sept. 30 has been granted, affording the group time to seek advice from local attorney Robert Miller, board member John Drayman told association members at a meeting Thursday. "We had decided we were going to engage an attorney to advise us on this matter as it relates to the small claims issue and also as it relates to the David Gayman issue," Drayman said.

A Los Angeles man and woman have filed a federal lawsuit against the Glendale Police Department, alleging a wrongful search last year during a traffic stop that led to their arrest. David Thompson Boyd, 51, and Patricia Marie Hale, 52, claimed in a U.S. District Court lawsuit filed March 5 that they were stopped on their way to dinner on Aug. 31, 2012 in Glendale for unknown reasons, searched without probable cause, arrested and denied bail. The pair are representing themselves. “It went from simply going to have dinner to all of a sudden being Bonnie and Clyde,” Boyd said, adding that he wants to know why the traffic stop escalated to an arrest.

Two former Glendale park naturalists may call nearly 40 former and current city employees to testify next month in a trial for their lawsuit in which they claim they were fired for raising concerns about a supervisor misusing city resources.  The federal trial for Russell Hauck and Eric Grossman was expected to start on Tuesday, but was put off until April 30 to give attorneys more time to resolve “several outstanding issues,” according to...

The City Council this week agreed to pay $145,000 to settle a breach of contract lawsuit filed by the insurer of a construction company hired to repair slopes in Glendale that were severely damaged by a mudslide in 2005. Hartford Fire Insurance Co. filed the lawsuit Nov. 1, claiming the contractor was underpaid for excavation work that turned out to be much more intensive than what was advertised by the city. In its lawsuit, Hartford Fire originally asked for $450,000 in damages - nearly as much as the city agreed to pay the contractor, Remedial Civil Constructors Inc., in 2009.

I'm very disappointed in this paper's coverage of the class-action lawsuit settlement with the Glendale Police Department and Glendale Unified School district regarding the Sept. 24, 2010, incident at Hoover High School. Glendale Education/Social Justice Advocates was approached by families of the students involved shortly after the incident and we worked very hard to achieve satisfaction for the victims of what I consider to be racial profiling and unconstitutional search and confinement.

A Glendale police officer has filed a lawsuit claiming he was the victim of repeated retaliation after he reported alleged health violations. Officer John Schmidt, who is currently employed with Police Department, alleged he and another officer were exposed to “blood-borne pathogens” while on duty, according to a Los Angeles County Superior Court lawsuit filed Jan. 22. He reported the incident on Sept. 28, 2011, to the city and the Police Department, alleging that he believed they failed to comply with California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health regulations.

Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Silver Lake) introduced a bill Monday to protect businesses from “shakedown” lawsuits that are filed with the intent of extracting settlements to make the litigation go away. Business owners told Gatto at his Small Business Advisory Commission's meeting last month that Proposition 65 - which allows the public to sue businesses for up to $2,500 for each day signs aren't posted about the dangers of chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects -- is easily abused by lawyers who file claims with the sole purpose of extracting settlements.

Walt Disney Co. reported a 6% drop in first-quarter earnings, compared with a year ago, in part because of charges associated with its high-profile dispute with the creator of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and a decline in operating income at the film studio. The Burbank entertainment giant reported net income of $1.4 billion, or 77 cents a share, for the quarter ending Dec. 29, down from $1.5 billion over the same period in 2011. Revenue for the first quarter rose 5% to $11.3 billion.

An autopsy report is a difficult read. So, too, was poring through a lawsuit filed against the Glendale Unified School District in December by the family of Drew Ferraro, a 15-year-old Crescenta Valley High School student who committed suicide one year ago next month. It is a story about a kid who loved music but could no longer find refuge in it. It is a story about someone with a flair for practical jokes, but whose own laughter had ceased. It is the story of a drowning, despite the lifeboats floating all around.

The parents of a 15-year-old Crescenta Valley High School student who jumped to his death on campus last year have filed a lawsuit alleging district officials turned a “blind eye” to the bullying that they allege prompted their son to take his own life. On Feb. 10, Drew Ferraro jumped to his death from a third-story building at the school in front of other students. Not long into the ensuing investigation, a Los Angeles County coroner's official said Drew did not reference bullying in any of the “very telling” four suicide notes found on his body.

Glendale and state officials have locked horns for months over spending money for redevelopment obligations, but this week, a decision handed down from Sacramento escalated the fight. In a letter this week, the California Department of Finance denied tens of millions of dollars that Glendale had requested to pay for the obligations of its former redevelopment agency, which like others across the state was dissolved by the state earlier this year. The decision to withhold some of the money Glendale requested will leave the city open to a lawsuit if it can't pay its obligations - a sticky situation forewarned by redevelopment attorneys months ago. “We don't have any administrative recourse,” said Philip Lanzafame, Glendale's officer for economic development and asset management, at a City Hall meeting Wednesday.