A reasonable person who was subjected to the racist taunts that a Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc. scientist endured would have felt the workplace was hostile, a lawyer for the scientist argues in court papers.

The lawyer, Steven Morelli, is trying to convince U.S. District Court Judge Charles L. Brieant to let the lawsuit filed by Mellard Jennings go to trial.

Wyeth’s lawyers filed papers in February and again this week urging Brieant, who works out of White Plains, to dismiss the lawsuit.

Jennings, 52, sued the company and fellow scientist Charles Guinosso in January 2007, alleging that Guinosso called him “boy,” and taunted him by making fun of Aunt Jemima and acting out a routine from “Amos ‘N Andy,” a defunct radio and television show that characterized blacks in an offensive way.

Jennings, a resident of Highland Falls, is black, while Guinosso is white. Both work at the company’s Pearl River campus.

In the company’s latest filing, Wyeth’s lawyers — who also represent Guinosso — argue that Jennings “raises baseless arguments and asserts irrelevant or unfounded facts in a desperate attempt to stave off” dismissal of his lawsuit.

Wyeth says Jennings has not met the legal standard for showing that he faced a hostile work environment because he has not shown Guinosso’s actions and comments were “either severe or pervasive.” The company says it has presented examples of other court cases involving allegations of harassment that were dismissed even though the allegations were more severe than the ones Jennings has made.

Jennings has also not shown the Guinosso’s conduct interfered with his ability to do his job, the company argues. Wyeth took action against Guinosso for his behavior and never retaliated against Jennings for bringing it to management’s attention, the company argues, disputing claims Jennings has made.

Jennings is one of seven black current and former employees of Wyeth’s Pearl River operations who sued the company for alleged race discrimination.

The company has so far succeeded in defeating two of the lawsuits. A jury ruled in the company’s favor in one suit and a judge dismissed another, leaving five suits, including the one filed by Jennings.

Property assessment challenges that are filed with the Westchester County Supreme Court now can be commenced electronically through the Unified Court System’s e-filing program, the County Clerk’s office said yesterday.
Documents can be filed online any time, anywhere. Court fees can be paid by credit card online. No additional fees are charged in connection with e-filed cases. Judges and court clerks can receive and access files electronically as well.
To access the Unified Court System’s e-filing website, go to nycourts.gov. Click on “E-Courts” and then “Electronic Filing.” You can also visit www.westchesterclerk.com, click on “Legal Division,” then click on “E-filing of Tax Certiorari.”
The program is a joint effort of County Clerk Timothy C. Idoni and Administrative Judge Francis A. Nicolai, with support from Westchester County’s Department of Information Technology. For more information, call 995-3070 or visit www.westchesterclerk.com.

Verizon Wireless said it is going to court to try and stop telemarketers who have made more than 2 million phone calls to its customers and employees this year.

In a lawsuit filed in New Jersey Superior Court, the company alleged that the telemarkers violated the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act that makes it illegal to use an autodialer to make calls to wireless phones. The suit also alleges that the calls violated fraud and privacy laws.

By filing the lawsuit, Verizon Wireless said the goal is to use the legal discovery process to help identify the unknown telemarketers, and make them stop the nuisance calls. The company said that the telemarketers used methods that hid their identities and the origin of the calls.

“Telemarketers are using increasingly sophisticated methods, such as illegal autodialing, to harass our customers,” Steven E. Zipperstein, vice president and general counsel of Verizon Wireless, said in a written statement. “Whatever the method, these unlawful telemarketing calls are an annoyance to our customers and invade their privacy, and we will continue to use every weapon in our legal arsenal to stop this activity and protect our customers.”

The calls in question involved Verizon Wireless customers and employees hearing a pre-recorded voice message indicating that the recipient’s car warranty was about to expire, and encouraging them to press “1” for more information. When recipients pressed “1”, they were connected to a person who asked for the make and model of the car. However, if the recipient asked for information about the company, the representative hung up and ended the call, according to Verizon Wireless.

Verizon Wireless, based in Basking Ridge, N.J., has 65.7 million customers nationally.

General Patent Corporation International, a Suffern-based patent licensing and enforcement firm, has settled two patent disputes involving its affiliate, Digital Technology Licensing LLC, and Cingular Wireless and AT&T Mobility.

The settlement, announced today, resolves two claims alleging infringement of single Digital Technology patent — one against AT&T in New Jersey in 2007 and a second earlier case in Texas in 2006 involving Cingular Wireless, a predecessor company to AT&T Mobility, the nation’s largest wireless carrier.

The lawsuit claimed both companies unlawfully used technology developed by Digital Technology that aids in audio compression and the ability for newer cellphones to work with older cellphones and towers, known as base stations.

As part of the settlement AT&T has licensed Digital Technology’s patent. Financial terms, however, weren’t disclosed.

The case was settled a week before jury selection was to begin, said the attorney for Digital Licensing.

The settlement with AT&T Mobility and Cingular follows licensing deals with Nokia, Ericson and Samsung, said Alexander Poltorak, General Patent’s chairman and chief executive.

Some 60 students taking helicopter flight school at Stewart International Airport in Orange County are wondering if they’ll ever see the tens of thousands of dollars in tuition they’ve paid to Silver State Helicopters after the company suddenly shut down operations Sunday.

Silver State Helicopters, a privately owned company based in Las Vegas, ceased all operations Sunday evening and yesterday filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, according to a press release posted on the company’s Web site (www.silverstatehelicopter.com).

“This action followed a rapid, unprecedented downturn in the U.S. credit markets,� the statement read, “which severely curtailed the availability of student loans for the company’s flight academy students and resulted in a sharp and sudden downturn in new student enrollment.�

Calls placed to the company’s Nevada headquarters this afternoon went unanswered.

The Journal News reported Silver State’s decision to open a flight school at Stewart in July.

Speaking at the time, company founder, president and chief executive Jerry Airola said tuition, which included 200 hours of flight time and 300 hours of classroom and simulator time, was about $70,000.

Airola also said his company had more than 2,600 students enrolled in 34 flight-training academies in 15 states, from Florida to Oregon.

One student whose wondering what will become of the tuition is Jesse Arvidson of Haverstraw, who today was anticipating further word from Silver State about what may become of the tuition he paid.

“Our class has now been in contact with the local FBI, district attorney, and consumer affairs office to see what our options are,� Arvidson wrote in an e-mail.

He and thousands of others students are awaiting word from the company, which is expected to release further information for students and the media this evening.

A trial to determine whether Wyeth Pharmaceutials Inc.’s Rockland County’s largest employer, discriminated against a former employee because of the employee’s race is scheduled to begin next Monday in federal court in White Plains.

Jury selection in the case was completed today.

U.S. District Court Judge William C. Conner will preside over a trial to determine whether Howard Henry of Ramapo, who was a Wyeth chemist and production engineer, was denied promotions in favor of less qualified white employees.

Henry, who is black, also alleges in his September 2005 lawsuit that he was demoted to packaging supervisor, a job he claims does not require a college degree and entails just standing at an assembly line.

Henry says that when he complained about the treatment, the company retaliated against him by denying him another promotion and by giving him negative performance evaluations.

Wyeth, which employs approximately 3,200 people at its campus in Pearl River, has denied the allegations by Henry and six additional current and former employees who have filed lawsuits alleging race discrimination. Henry’s lawsuit is the only one for which a trial date has been set.
Henry, 39, left the company in 2006 after 13 years.

Conner last month refused to dismiss the case. Judge Colleen McMahon had previously dismissed allegations of discrimination Henry made against a pair of Wyeth supervisors, but the company remains a defendant.

The company asked Conner to review McMahon’s decision and to dismiss the entire case.

The Dannon Company Inc. of White Plains is facing a potential class action lawsuit accusing the company of falsely claiming health benefits for its Activia and DanActive yogurt. A Los Angeles law firm yesterday filed the suit in federal court on behalf of plaintiff Patricia Wiener and “tens of thousands of consumers� who have purchased the products. Dannon could not be reached to comment.

Activia, introduced in January 2006, was Dannon’s most successful new product to date, with about $130 million in sales that year. In January 2007, Dannon launched DanActive. oth yogurt brands contain specialized bacteria called “probiotic,� which Dannon has claimed come with health benefits. In the case of Activia, the ingredient is “Bifidus Regularis,� a proprietary probiotic bacteria that Dannon said is “proven� to improve one’s “intestinal rhythm� and “regulate your digestive system,� according to the complaint.  DanActive contains the probiotic bacteria “L. casai Immunitas,� which the company has advertised as “clinically proven to help naturally strengthen the body’s defenses,� the complaint states.

Michael Neuwirth, senior director of public relations for Dannon, said in an interview with The Journal News last year: “Probiotics are a key element of our growth strategy. These are what we call high-health products, and they have clinically proven benefits beyond that of traditional yogurt, most often based on proprietary probiotic cultures found only in Dannon products.�

Dannon sells the product at a 30 percent premium to other yogurts, according to the suit, which also said Dannon has spent $100 million on its marketing. Deceptive advertising has enabled Dannon to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ordinary yogurt at inflated prices to responsible, health conscious consumers,� said plaintiff’s lead attorney Timothy G. Blood of Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP.

A key exhibit in the case is a 2006 study funded by Dannon that showed “no conclusive evidence� of probiotics providing health benefits, according to the complaint. The report, entitled “Probiotic Microbes: The Scientific Basis,� was prepared by the American Academy of Microbiology, a leadership group of the American Society of Microbiology, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit seeks redress for consumers and asks Dannon to pull its marketing messages and “correct the record.� Dannon is owned by Groupe Danone in Paris, which also owns Stonyfield Farms Inc., the New Hampshire-based maker of organic yogurt and ice cream.

The U.S. International Trade Commission said today it will begin looking into allegations that ASUSTeK, based in Taiwan, infringed patents belonging to Armonk-based IBM Corp.

Big Blue filed a complaint with the commission last month.

The complaint, which also targets ASUSTeK’s North American subsidiary, ASUS Computer International, seeks to have certain ASUSTeK computer products and components barred from entry into the United States.

The commission’s decision to investigate IBM’s claims doesn’t mean the agency has reached a decision about the merits of the case, the ITC said.

Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. said that its subsidiary, Duramed Pharmaceuticals Inc. has filed lawsuits against Watson Pharmaceuticals and Sandoz, a subsidiary of Novartis, for alleged infringement of the patent covering Duramed’s Seasonale birth control pills. The suits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
In September, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reissued Duramed’s patent for Seasonale. Barr, based in Montvale, N.J., has major operations in Rockland County.
“We will pursue all means to enforce the patent covering our Seasonale extended-cycle oral contraceptive, which was reissued by the (patent office) in September,” Bruce L. Downey, Barr’s Chairman and chief executive officer said in a written statement.

Emisphere Technologies Inc. has agreed to accept $18 million from Eli Lilly and Co. to settle the pending litigation between the two companies, the Tarrytown-based biotech company said today. This settles a dispute over Emisphere’s GLP molecule technology, an osteoporosis drug. A U.S. district court judge ruled in January that Lilly improperly broke an agreement with Emisphere, clearing the way for the Emisphere to license technology for the osteoporosis drug to a new partner. In April, an appeals court judge upheld that ruling.

Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. said that its Pomona-based generic-drug unit, Barr Laboratories Inc., has challenged the patents listed by Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC in connection with its Uroxatral 10mg tablets. Barr applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on June 12 to create a generic version of Uroxatral. On Friday, Sanofi-Aventis filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware to prevent Barr from making its generic drug. Barr said it believes that other companies that have applied to the FDA to make the drug have also been sued. Uroxatral treats benign prostatic hyperplasia and has annual U.S. sales of about $140 million, Barr said, citing data from IMS Health.

EVCI Career Colleges Holding Corp. of Yonkers said yesterday that a federal court has approved the settlement of a shareholders’ class action lawsuit that dismisses all claims without any liability or wrongdoing attributed to the company.

The lawsuit was filed in December 2005. Attorneys for the shareholders said they settled for $7.73 million. EVCI said the settlement is being covered by its insurance carriers.

Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co. have settled a patent dispute involving a weekly-dosage version of the anti-depression medication, Prozac, Barr announced today.

The parties voluntarily dismissed all claims and counterclaims in the patent litigation Friday, said Barr, who’s Pomona-based Barr Laboratories Inc. unit was sued by Eli Lilly in May 2006. Barr still needs Food and Drug Administration approval to sell its 90-milligram version of the drug, Prozac Weekly, which had sales of approximately $30 million in the year ending March, based on industry data, Barr said.

Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. said yesterday it has strong grounds to appeal a decision handed down by a Croatian court against a subsidiary over a patent case. The decision by the Commercial Court in Zagreb required the subsidiary, Pliva, to pay $8 million to a number of former employees in connection with a process for producing Azithromycin, an antibiotic.

The lawsuit was filed in August 2001; Barr acquired Pliva last October. Barr said it would not have to pay the judgment until the decision is affirmed on appeal. Barr has manufacturing and research operations in Pomona.

Anyone who bought shares from Aug. 14, 2003, to Dec. 6, 2006, of EVCI Career Colleges Holding Corp., the Yonkers company that runs career colleges, may be eligible to share in a proposed $7.73 million class-action settlement, a New York law firm said this morning.

A federal judge in U.S. District Court in Manhattan must still approve the settlement and has scheduled a hearing a for July 27, the firm of Bernstein Litowitz, Berger & Grossman LLP said.

The lawsuit filed in December 2005 by a shareholder named Geoffrey Glauser alleged the company misrepresented its business conditions, financial results and prospects.

A New York-based iron workers union will pay $800,000 to settle allegations that it violated a court order by discriminating against minority workers in Westchester County and New York City when it came to referring them to jobs.

The money will provide back pay for 45 workers. It will also pay for training and tools workers need to perform work in the city and Westchester, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said yesterday.

The case stretches back to the civil rights era. Johnnie Louis Johnson III, a senior trial attorney for the EEOC, said the U.S. Justice Department sued Local 580 of the Ornamental Ironworkers and other trade unions in the New York area in 1971, alleging they discriminated against minority workers. Those actions resulted in a number of court orders intended to put a halt to the discrimination, he said.

The EEOC charged in June 2001 that Local 580 violated that order starting in 1992 and should be held in contempt. The EEOC said the union’s actions resulted in a “substantial disparity� between the number of hours worked by whites and minorities.

The union provided few opportunities for the minority workers because of both their race and national origin, the EEOC said.

The settlement announced today does not settle all of the issues the EEOC has with Local 580, Johnson said. The sides are still in court over questions relating to the number of apprentices the union places on jobs and the racial makeup of the groups of apprentices.

Dennis Lusardi, the business manager for the local, could not be reached at the offices in New York yesterday. A lawyer for the union did not return a phone call.

The settlement was approved by U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Carter in lower Manhattan.
In 2003, the union agreed to a $4.5 million settlement with the EEOC after failing to keep required numbers of apprentices on job sites.

IBM Corp. of Armonk and Internet marketplace company Amazon.com said this morning they have settled their legal dispute over IBM’s patents. The companies said IBM will receive an undisclosed amount of money to settle the litigation.

The companies also reached agreement on how Amazon can use IBM’s patented processes in the future. IBM filed a pair of lawsuits against Amazon in federal court in Texas last October.

The computer giant said IBM was successful largely because of patents IBM owned. The patents covered processes like ordering items off an electronic catalog, recommending products to customers and placing ads.

Dan Cerutti, the general manager of software intellectual property for IBM, said: “At IBM, we place a high value on our IP assets and believe this agreement substantiates the value of our portfolio. We’re pleased this matter has been resolved through negotiation and licensing. We look forward to a more productive relationship with Amazon in the future.�

IBM shares closed yesterday at $103.16, up 20 cents.

Pernod Ricard USA LLC, the Purchase company that sells alcoholic drinks, has succeeded in ousting a Stamford, Conn.-based distributor of Seagram’s Coolers in the United States, the Caribbean and U.S. military bases worldwide.

The company said High Falls Brewing Co. LLC of Rochester has been named the exclusive distributor for the drinks. High Falls will also make and pack the drinks, which are currently made at a Pernod facility in Indiana. United States Beverage, the distributor since 2002, will remain the distributor until the end of June.

Pernod sued United States Beverage, arguing that the supplier’s five-year contract to buy and sell Pernod’s Seagram’s Cooler low-alcohol drinks expired at the end of March.

Pernod Ricard wanted to replace United States Beverage with the High Falls Brewing Co. United States Beverage countered that it paid Pernod more than $30 million in fees and spent additional tens of millions of dollars to market the drinks based on Pernod’s promises of a long-term relationship.

The sides settled their lawsuit in March but did not announce terms of the settlement at that time.

In court papers, Pernod indicated it was important for it to have a clear picture as to who the supplier would be before warm weather hit.

The company said most of the sales take place from May to August and that by insisting that it would still be the supplier during those months United States Beverage was causing “great confusion� in the marketplace, making it hard for High Falls to take over the job smoothly and harming the brand.

The company said it considered 2007 a particularly important year for the brand, since sales of the drinks fell last year.

USI Holdings Corp. of Briarcliff Manor, which is being sold to an affiliate of Goldman, Sachs & Co. for about $1.4 billion in cash, has won a round in a court fight over copyright infringement that could limit its damages in the case.

USI, a distributor of financial products and services, lost a jury trial when the plaintiff, William A. Graham Co., successfully argued that USI MidAtlantic Inc. and a former Graham employee used information from copyrighted insurance manuals to get insurance business.

The jury ruled that USI MidAtlantic owed $16.6 million and former employee Thomas P. Haughey owed $2.2 million.

In November, a judge ordered a second trial in the case.

Today, a federal court granted USI’s request to limit damages to a three-year period, rather than the 13-year period considered by the jury in the original trial. A date for the new trial has not been set.
USI expects to complete the transaction with the Goldman, Sachs affiliate by April 30.

MBIA Inc., the Armonk-based bond insurer, announced today that it will incur $20 million in losses in the first quarter after the settlement of a five-year-old lawsuit related to a dispute over student loans.

MBIA said that the settlement covers litigation that it filed in 2002 to enforce insurance policies that Royal Indemnity Co. issued guaranteeing the student loans. There were losses on eight of the bonds backed by the loans. That hurt MBIA because it had insured repayment of the bonds.

“We are pleased to resolve this longstanding matter and to eliminate the additional expense and risks associated with further litigation,� MBIA General Counsel Ram Wertheim said in a written statement.

Royal’s payments under the settlement will be enough to repay $362 million of the bonds insured by MBIA as well as to reimburse MBIA for part of the claims that it has paid under its insurance policies, MBIA said. The expected first-quarter loss represents a reduction to MBIA’s expected recoveries for claims it has paid, the company added. Royal is based in Charlotte, N.C. The case was handled in U.S. District Court in Delaware.

MBIA’s profits dropped 1 percent during the fourth quarter as the world’s largest insurer of municipal bonds faced greater competition to write new business.

The company’s shares rose 21.4 percent last year while it earned $819.3 million on revenues of $2.71 billion.

Its shares closed at $64.88 today, down 61 cents, or 0.9 percent.