Lawsuit

Consumers who purchased Skechers Shape-ups or other toning shoes made by the company will be eligible for a partial refund from a $40 million settlement that the company made with the Federal Trade Commission and 42 states with class action lawsuits. The settlement is being finalized Wednesday in a federal court in the Northern District of Ohio, according to the FTC. "Skechers put its foot in its mouth by making unwarranted claims," said David Vladeck, director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday that sought to hold Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral and the superintendent of the county jail responsible for the death of a 49-year-old immigrant detainee. The detainee, Pedro Tavarez, fell ill while in custody and died in 2009 from a heart attack caused by a bacterial infection. US District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf said that Tavarez's family could not show that Cabral and Suffolk House of Correction superintendent Gerard Horgan were deliberately indifferent to the treatment of Tavarez, the standard to hold them...

Polls show that frustration with Washington has never been higher — and who could argue? Most Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Most lawmakers openly concede that nothing will get done before the November elections. The leaders of both parties are already trading threats over the possibility of a national debt default next year. Barack Obama got elected by promising to change the tone in Washington, but clearly he's failed, as George W. Bush did before him. That should be a clue that the partisan animosity consuming the political system doesn't originate in the White House.

Facebook is close to settling a lawsuit over advertisements it calls "sponsored stories. " Launched in early 2011, the service let brands pay to retransmit users' activities to their friends' pages. For example, if someone clicks the "like" button for a brand, this activity might show up as a "sponsored story" on their friends' pages. Lawyers for Facebook and the plaintiffs said in a San Jose, Calif. court filing Monday that they have reached a "settlement in principle. " The lawsuit was filed by Facebook users Angel Fraley, Paul Wang and others last year.

ANCHORAGE - Royal Dutch Shell Oil Co. is taking the offensive against environmental groups that have put legal roadblocks in its path to offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean. The oil giant sued 11 Alaska Native or environmental groups that have challenged Arctic offshore drilling at various regulatory steps, starting with the sale of leases and continuing through nearly every permit Shell has needed to dip into the petroleum wealth believed to be in the Chukchi Sea and the Beaufort Sea off the state's coast.

The parents of two Chinese students who were killed near the University of Southern California campus filed a lawsuit alleging the school made false claims about safety. In the 15-page suit filed Wednesday, the parents of 23-year-olds Ming Qu and Ying Wu attack safety claims they say the school makes in the "frequently asked questions" section of its online application. The suit alleges, "USC is not one of the safest U.S. universities and colleges and does not provide 24-hour law enforcement services in the surrounding neighborhoods and is in a high crime area.

Miami Heat star Chris Bosh is suing the mother of his child for appearing on the VH1 show “Basketball Wives.’’ Bosh seeks damages and an injunction to block Allison Mathis and Shed Media from trademark infringement by using his name and disclosing private facts about his life. Pelley to anchor Scott Pelley was named yesterday to replace Katie Couric as “CBS Evening News’’ anchor, and he promised to bring his “60 Minutes’’ sensibility to the job when he starts June 6. CBS hasn’t set an exit date for Couric.

Selectmen have acknowledged they didn't reach an agreement in recent mediation discussions related to a $500,000 civil lawsuit filed by former finance director Tracy Blais. Blais, now the town administrator in Newbury, filed the lawsuit last summer, naming Selectman Tom Atwood and two former members of the board, Glenn Kemper and John McGrath. The lawsuit says that she had been defamed and discriminated against by town officials, and that the officials had failed to live up to her contract.

Ben Roethlisberger’s lawyer yesterday adamantly denied the allegations levied against the Steelers quarterback, who has been named in a lawsuit by a woman accusing him of sexually assaulting her last summer. The woman was working as an executive casino host at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe, Calif., last July when she said Roethlisberger struck up a friendly conversation at her desk during a celebrity tournament. According to the lawsuit, the woman claims Roethlisberger raped her the next night in his penthouse hotel room.

ATLANTA — Bishop Eddie Long’s boys’ academy guided teens through their “masculine journey’’ with lessons on financial discipline and sexual control, right down to a little card the students had to carry in their wallets reminding them why they should not have sex. Long himself, though, has been accused of contradicting those virtues. The bishop, who has been an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, is being sued by two young men who attended the LongFellows Youth Academy and say Long used the program to groom them for sexual relationships.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's infamous encounter with a hotel housekeeper reflected a pattern of misogynistic behavior by the former International Monetary Fund leader, she said in court papers adding a new claim Tuesday to her sexual-assault lawsuit against him. Tapping a New York City law against gender-based violence and pointing to other allegations that have circled Strauss-Kahn, the woman's lawyers wrote that the onetime French presidential contender...

Plans to turn Wayne Newton's sprawling Las Vegas estate into a celebrity museum have shifted into an ugly legal battle citing mismanagement, animal abuse and sexual harassment. The company that purchased the rights to convert Newton's home into "Graceland West" filed a lawsuit this week in Las Vegas against Newton, his wife and her 76-year-old mother that claims the family unreasonably delayed the project to ensure it never opens. The Newton family claims the lawsuit is a preemptive strike because they had planned to sue the company for breach of...

It remains a mystery: Why did the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, an agency charged with rooting out bias, introduce and then abruptly move to withdraw a legal brief in a case filed by minority officers? Now, the NAACP and an organization representing minority police officers are trying to get answers. On Wednesday, they fired off a letter to Governor Deval Patrick and state Attorney General Martha Coakley strongly insinuating that those elected state leaders were behind the MCAD's abrupt about-face.

A federal judge in Miami has thrown out a racketeering lawsuit filed by an American lawyer against members of a powerful Panamanian family in a lengthy struggle over a multimillionaire's estate. U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola ruled Thursday that the four-year RICO statute of limitations had expired when the lawsuit was filed last year. It sought $725 million and accused members of Panama's Arias family, attorneys and three judges of trying to steal the estate of wealthy businessman Wilson C. Lucom.

The relatives of one of James "Whitey" Bulger's alleged victims asked a federal judge Wednesday to allow a lawsuit they filed against four FBI agents to proceed in the court, the latest step in what they called their long, frustrating journey to hold the agents responsible for protecting the notorious gangster. "Eleven years is a long time we've been fighting this case," said Tom Donahue, the son of homicide victim Michael Donahue. The Donahue family and the family representing alleged Bulger victim Edward "Brian" Halloran had already won multimillion-dollar lawsuits...

The parents of two Chinese students who were killed near the University of Southern California campus filed a lawsuit alleging the school made false claims about safety. In the 15-page suit filed Wednesday, the parents of 23-year-olds Ming Qu and Ying Wu attack safety claims they say the school makes in the "frequently asked questions" section of its online application. The suit alleges, "USC is not one of the safest U.S. universities and colleges and does not provide 24-hour law enforcement services in the surrounding neighborhoods and is in a high crime area.

CONCORD, N.H. -- A disabled girl who claimed the Girl Scouts excluded her because she's in a wheelchair has lost her lawsuit. The state Supreme Court decided unanimously this week that the claim under New Hampshire's Law Against Discrimination was brought after the 180-day statute of limitations ran out. Once the decision was rendered on the state law, the US District Court closed the federal case. Linda Steir of Atkinson, mother of the plaintiff, said the family had a new claim under the federal rehabilitation act that says organizations that use public funding cannot discriminate.

NEW YORK -- Saying the city had created its "own little Guantanamo on the Hudson" during the Republican National Convention, a lawyer filed a lawsuit yesterday on behalf of nearly 2,000 people arrested at demonstrations. The federal lawsuit claims protesters and bystanders were rounded up in mass arrests without cause, were kept without access to their lawyers or families at an old bus depot used as a temporary detention center, and were exposed for days to cruel and inhuman conditions.

Consumers who purchased Skechers Shape-ups or other toning shoes made by the company will be eligible for a partial refund from a $40 million settlement that the company made with the Federal Trade Commission and 42 states with class action lawsuits. The settlement is being finalized Wednesday in a federal court in the Northern District of Ohio, according to the FTC. "Skechers put its foot in its mouth by making unwarranted claims," said David Vladeck, director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection.

The legal battle between gaming giants Activision Blizzard Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. is over, with the companies announcing they have settled a case that accused EA of improperly recruiting two executives who oversaw the creation of the smash videogame "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. " The settlement announced Wednesday in Los Angeles does not end the war between Activision and dozens of former "Call of Duty" developers who claim they have...