An Orange County judge said Tuesday that she will issue a court order to restrict Costa Mesa from laying off nearly half of the city's workforce and outsourcing jobs.

Superior Court Judge Tam Nomoto Schumann said she would grant the Orange County Employees Association's request for a preliminary injunction. But the city has until Friday to file objections before she issues her ruling.

The union filed suit in May, arguing that the city's plan to outsource municipal jobs violates state law and the union contract.

In March, the Costa Mesa City Council majority voted to outsource jobs to mostly private companies in a drastic move to plug a $15 million budget hole.

Soon afterward, 213 of 450 employees got layoff notices that would take effect in September.

Union spokeswoman Jennifer Muir said the court order would protect employees' jobs until the case against the city goes to trial.

Schumann said the city must follow proper procedures when laying off workers, but she didn't explain what those procedures are.

Assistant City Attorney Harold Potter contends the city has been following procedures while pursuing austerity measures.

The judge's ruling won't stop the city from exploring outsourcing options, he said.

A billion-dollar "technical revision" added to a patent bill passed by the House last week could provide huge financial benefits to one pharmaceutical company and a law firm.

On the surface, the barely noticed amendment simply clarifies a process by which the Food and Drug Administration approves a patent for a brand-name drug, and gives the manufacturer 60 days to apply for an extension with the U.S. Patent and Trade Office.

In reality, the measure could give a New Jersey drugmaker, The Medicines Co., 2½ more years of patent protection for its lucrative blood thinner Angiomax. It would also save the law firm WilmerHale $214 million it would owe the drug company under a malpractice lawsuit if a generic alternative is sold in the United States before June 15, 2015.

The amendment barely won House approval and it is not a part of the Senate version of the patent system overhaul bill, so it is questionable whether it will ever become law. The amendment would write into law a court decision in favor of the drug company and would pre-empt any appeal.

It shows how, hidden behind the lines of obtuse legislative language, huge fortunes can be at stake, sometimes for specific companies.

A six-week trial in Hamilton County Court ended yesterday afternoon with the award of a $14.5 million jury verdict for Joseph Radcliff and his restoration company, CPM Construction of Indiana, against State Farm Insurance.

State Farm had filed suit for insurance fraud and RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) claims against Radcliff and CPM.  The case arose out of work done by Radcliff and CPM following the April 2006 hailstorm.  Radcliff and CPM’s allegations were that after State Farm received negative publicity in the Indianapolis media for denying hail damage claims, State Farm made unfounded claims of fraud against Radcliff and instigated the filing of felony charges against him.  Those charges were dismissed by the Marion County Prosecutor, but the negative publicity resulted in Radcliff’s personal reputation and business being destroyed.

Not only did the jury find that State Farm’s claims against Radcliff were baseless, but they also found that the Radcliff’s allegations of being defamed by State Farm were true. The jury ordered State Farm to pay Radcliff $14.5 million.

Radcliff was represented by Will Riley, lead trial counsel of the law firm Price Waicukauski & Riley, LLC along with attorneys Joe Williams, James Piatt and Jamie Kendall of the same firm and Mark McKinzie, Partner in the law firm Riley Bennett & Egloff LLP.

Riley stated, “It was a tribute to the American jury system that one man can take on the largest insurance company in the nation and win.”  McKinzie agreed, stating “This sends a strong signal to Bloomington, Illinois that Hoosiers will not put up with this sort of conduct.” Radcliff commented “I am grateful to those who believed in me and helped me get the true facts before the jury and to the jury for giving me, and my failed company, justice.”

Price Waicukauski & Riley, LLC is a law firm known for its representation of clients in complex litigation. Riley Bennett & Egloff, LLP is a law firm known for advising and representing businesses and their owners in various litigation matters.

In a strongly worded legal brief, the Obama administration has said the federal act that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman was motivated by hostility toward gays and lesbians and is unconstitutional.

The brief was filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco in support of a lesbian federal employee's lawsuit claiming the government wrongly denied health insurance coverage to her same-sex spouse.

The Justice Department says Karen Golinski's suit should not be dismissed because the law under which her spouse was denied benefits — the Defense of Marriage Act — violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection.

"The official legislative record makes plain that DOMA Section 3 was motivated in large part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals and their intimate relationships, and Congress identified no other interest that is materially advanced by Section 3," the brief reads, referring to the section in the act that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Though the administration has previously said it will not defend the marriage act, the brief is the first court filing in which it urges the court to find the law unconstitutional, said Tobias Barrington Wolff, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Bank of America Corp. is close to finalizing a deal to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims by a group of investors that the bank sold them poor-quality mortgage-backed securities that went sour when the housing market tanked, according to a person familiar with the settlement talks.

The Charlotte, North Carolina, bank was continuing talks late Tuesday with the group, which includes the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Pimco Investment Management, the world's largest bondholder, and Blackrock Financial Management. It is expected to announce an agreement as early as Wednesday, the person said on condition of anonymity because the matter was still developing.

The deal comes eight months after the group fired off a letter to Bank of America demanding that it repurchase $47 billion in mortgages that its Countrywide unit sold to them in the form of bonds. The investors have argued that Countrywide's practice of modifying loans found to have faulty paperwork or those written outside of normal underwriting standards breached signed agreements with the investors. By continuing to service bad loans rather than speeding up foreclosures, the group has claimed that Countrywide ran up servicing fees, enriching itself at the expense of investors. The New York Fed is involved because it took over assets held by American International Group Inc., which faltered under the weight of bad home loans that it insured.

Bank of America, which paid $4 billion for Countrywide in 2008, has dismissed suggestions that its handling of loan modifications and other efforts to prevent foreclosure have violated the terms of the mortgage-backed securities that the investors hold. In November, CEO Brian Moynihan said he was in day-to-day "hand-to-hand combat" with investors' demands.

Newly-unsealed court documents detail some of the early travels of James "Whitey" Bulger and his longtime girlfriend Catherine Greig following Bulger's 1995 indictment.

In an affidavit dated April 25, 1997, then-FBI Special Agent Charles Gianturco writes that Bulger and Greig spent time in New York on Long Island and in Grand Isle, La., in 1995 and 1996.

According to the affidavit, Bulger and Greig checked into a hotel under the names "Mr. and Mrs. Tom Baxter" in the fall of 1995, and that Bulger had also used that name when he befriended a man in neighboring Selden told him he was a merchant seaman.

The criminal complaint against Grieg was unsealed Thursday in Boston following the arrests of Bulger and Grieg in Santa Monica, Calif. It charges Greig with harboring and concealing Bulger.