Nation Briefs

Lucasfilm to be paid $250,000 in lightsaber settlement

Lucasfilm, the film-production company of Star Wars creator George Lucas, will be paid $250,000 by a Maryland man and his novelty company to resolve claims he made and sold replica lightsabers without permission.

U.S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte in San Jose, Calif., approved the settlement, Lucasfilm said Wednesday in a statement. The accord prevents William Osburn and his company, High-Tech Magic, from selling copies of the light-beam swords featured in the six-film Star Wars series.

Lucasfilm is “investigating other prop-replica companies that are infringing on Lucasfilm’s trademarks and copyrights,” Howard Roffman, president of the Lucas Licensing unit, said in the statement.

Lucasfilm, based in Nicasio, Calif., sued Osburn in November, asking the court to order all of High-Tech Magic’s lightsaber replicas destroyed and award cash compensation for lost profit. In October, Lucasfilm won $20 million in damages in a case against a U.K. company that sold helmets and costumes based on characters from the Star Wars movies.

Calls to High-Tech Magic seeking comment weren’t immediately returned.

— Joel Rosenblatt, Bloomberg News

PETA accuses PetSmart of cruelty to hamsters

PetSmart, the biggest U.S. pet-store chain, was accused of cruelty to hamsters and birds by the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which filed a complaint with police.

PetSmart denied the charges and said PETA was attempting to stop the company from selling small pets. The organization alleges PetSmart denied veterinary care to sick hamsters, domestic rats, lizards and birds.

PETA made the complaint in Hartford, Conn., alleging that PetSmart’s Manchester, Conn., store has violated anti-cruelty laws, Holly Mattern, a PETA spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail. PETA has “shocking evidence of the unalleviated suffering and deaths of scores of small pets including hamsters and birds,” Mattern wrote.

Bruce Richardson, a PetSmart spokesman, said the Manchester location had a staff of veterinarians on site, and the PETA complaints had been investigated and found untrue.

“PETA came to us about a year and a half ago and said they would conduct a negative campaign against us if we didn’t stop selling small pets,” Richardson said. “They laid out a detailed plan of what they would do. It’s basically extortion.”

PETA spokeswoman Mary Beth Sweetland called the accusations of extortion “nonsense.”

— Carol Wolf, Bloomberg News

Former advertising executive sues Wal-Mart over firing

Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, was sued by former advertising chief Julie Roehm for breach of contract and fraud. She also said Wal-Mart “made false and malicious statements to the media.”

Roehm’s complaint, filed in a Michigan court, said Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart told her she was fired last month because she hadn’t “been fulfilling the expectations of an officer of the company.”

Wal-Mart hasn’t paid all the money it owes her, Roehm said. Roehm was an “at-will” employee and isn’t entitled to any damages, Wal-Mart said in court papers filed Dec. 18.

She filed her lawsuit in state court in Pontiac, Mich., and it was transferred Jan. 10 to federal court in Detroit.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said the company wouldn’t comment beyond what it said in court papers. John Schaefer, Roehm’s attorney, didn’t immediately return calls for comment. A message left at Roehm’s Arkansas home wasn’t immediately returned.

— Margaret Cronin Fisk and Lauren Coleman-Lochner, Bloomberg News

New York firms join associate-raise bandwagon

Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison and three other New York-based law firms raised first-year lawyer salaries to $160,000, a day after Simpson Thacher & Bartlett said it did so.

Simpson Thacher said Monday it had raised associates’ annual salaries by 10 percent from the $145,000 they were getting in September. Paul Weiss; Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton; Sullivan & Cromwell; and Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft said Tuesday they followed suit.

“We have matched it,” Paul Weiss Chairman Alfred Youngwood said in a telephone interview. “We thought it was appropriate.”

Paul Weiss has the fourth-highest profits per partner among U.S. law firms, about $2.48 million, according to The American Lawyer. With a reported 679 lawyers, the firm is the 50th-largest in the United States, based on an annual survey published in November by the National Law Journal.

Last February, Sullivan raised starting associates’ pay by $20,000 a year to $145,000, prompting firms including Simpson Thacher, Paul Weiss and Cleary Gottlieb to do the same. The New York firms acted after California-based rivals raised first-year salaries to $135,000 in late 2005.

— Andrew Harris and Lindsay Fortado, Bloomberg News