Lawsuit

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.

Local Armenian-Americans last week hailed a state bill extending the deadline for victims of the Armenian Genocide and their descendants to file lawsuits in California courts for unpaid insurance policies. “Hopefully, some of the victims' families will be relieved,” said Armond Aghakhanian, political chairman of the Burbank chapter of the Armenian National Committee. “I think it's justice and I think it's our system working at its best.” Father Vazken Atmajian, senior pastor at St. Mary's Armenian Apostolic Church in Glendale, was also pleased with the legislation.

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,...

GLENDALE — A Glendale-based fundraising company has been named in a state-filed lawsuit that alleges the organization duped donors into giving hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of a nonexistent program for at-risk youth. The for-profit company, Rambret Inc., reportedly promised donors that their money was going to help run the Law Enforcement Apprenticeship Program, which never saw the light of day, according to the lawsuit filed Friday. Donations were instead used to pay for a 30-foot sailboat, fundraising expenses and the Law Enforcement Apprenticeship Program Foundation director’s personal expenditures, the lawsuit alleges.

GLENDALE — A lawsuit against five Glendale Police officers that alleges the officers physically attacked a 63-year-old Montrose man in 2004 will go to trial in July. Yeghia Shekerdemian claims officers used undue force during an unwarranted arrest Sept. 28, 2004, causing "such severe pain that he started crying and lost consciousness," according to court documents filed at Los Angeles Superior Court. The suit claims that on Sept. 28, 2004, four Glendale officers pounced on Shekerdemian at about 5 p.m. after he yelled at a plain-clothed undercover officer to get off his front lawn in the 4400 block of Young Drive in Montrose.

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.

DOWNTOWN — A seventh member of the Burbank Police Department has filed a lawsuit against the city and members of the department in federal court, alleging that his civil rights were violated by a rogue group of cops who used intimidation, harassment and brutality to keep him and witnesses from talking about several misconduct investigations. Burbank Police Det. Angelo Dahlia alleges that high-ranking members of the department investigating the 2007 robbery of Porto’s Bakery assaulted and beat witnesses and suspects “under the color of authority,” according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. Central District Court.

Robert Chacon La Canada Flintridge officials have asked a judge to dismiss a resident's lawsuit seeking to block their plans to install new sewers in town. Jim Short's lawsuit, which was filed last month, attacks the city's justification for the formation of Sewer District No. 3, which was approved by voters in June. Owners of the more than 1,600 properties in that district north of Foothill Boulevard would be assessed $18,000 to $22,000 to pay for construction of sewers.

Attorneys argued Monday that it was either religious intolerance or workplace incompetence that drove systems administrator David Coppedge from a post at Jet Propulsion Laboratory last year. Monday's arguments capped a five-week trial in Coppedge's lawsuit against the NASA lab in La Cañada Flintridge, in which he claimed he was removed from his job in 2011 because of his advocacy of the theory of intelligent design of the universe. “This is a series of retaliation - a series of subtly damaging injuries all starting from David's reaction” to discriminatory actions taken by supervisors, said William Becker, Coppedge's attorney.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has written to the leader of the California Senate, calling for the state to adopt legislation that would curb what she calls abusive lawsuits filed by private attorneys against small businesses for minor violations of disabled-access laws, and warning that if the state doesn't act, she will. Feinstein said some attorneys are filing "abusive lawsuits," and "coercive demand letters" to force small businesses to pay thousands of dollars over often-minor noncompliance with the federal Americans With Disabilities Act and the state Unruh Civil Rights Act, according to the L.A. Times.

Former Jet Propulsion Laboratory employee David Coppedge testified Monday that other employees at the facility displayed political and religious materials in the workplace, even after he was told to stop discussing “intelligent design” or Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage. Coppedge's testimony came in the second week of a trial in his lawsuit claiming he was wrongfully terminated and JPL discriminated against him because he advocated for the theory of intelligent design, which holds that God guided the creation and evolution of the universe.

Three Armenian Glendale police officers filed a lawsuit Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging racial discrimination and continued retaliation after they filed a claim against the department in federal court two years ago. Officers Vahak Mardikian, John Balian and Tigran Topadzhikyan also allege in the latest lawsuit filed against the city and high-ranking members of the Glendale Police Department that they have been unfairly placed...

A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union alleging racial profiling at Hoover High School was met with mixed reaction Friday as officials defended a 2010 operation in which dozens of Latino students were allegedly interrogated as an effort to keep gang activity at bay. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, alleges that approximately 55 Latino students were detained and searched at lunch on Sept. 24, 2010. Those targeted were intimidated and interrogated about any scars, tattoos and gang affiliations, and were ordered to stop hanging out with one another at lunch, according to the suit.

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.

GLENDALE - Two former Glendale park naturalists have filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming they were wrongly terminated when they complained about a manager's misuse of city resources. Russell Hauck and Eric Grossman claim in separate lawsuits filed July 29 in U.S. District Court that they were laid off only after they raised concerns about Dave Ahern, the former capital projects administrator for the city's Community Services & Parks Department, and his alleged use of a city-owned vehicle and public employees for his own landscaping.

Local Armenian-Americans last week hailed a state bill extending the deadline for victims of the Armenian Genocide and their descendants to file lawsuits in California courts for unpaid insurance policies. “Hopefully, some of the victims' families will be relieved,” said Armond Aghakhanian, political chairman of the Burbank chapter of the Armenian National Committee. “I think it's justice and I think it's our system working at its best.” Father Vazken Atmajian, senior pastor at St. Mary's Armenian Apostolic Church in Glendale, was also pleased with the legislation.

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.

Developer Rick Caruso has negotiated a deal to acquire the Golden Key Hotel as part of his bid to expand his 15.5-acre Americana at Brand, attorneys for both parties said during a court hearing Thursday. The amount of the agreement was not disclosed, but in papers filed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Golden Key Hotel owner Ray Patel estimated the value of the 55-room inn at between $15 million and $17 million. Its assessed value is $4.9 million, according to county records.