Suit

A civil jury found yesterday that a Baltimore County police officer trespassed when he entered an Owings Mills apartment a year ago after a neighbor complained about noise, lawyers in the case said. However, the Circuit Court jury limited the damage award to $1 to each of the two women who brought suit, and also ruled in favor of Officer Kenneth W. Brown regarding claims of false imprisonment and battery. Crystal Rose Van Allen and Elizabeth Marie Couvillion also brought claims of false imprisonment and trespass against officers William McGladrie and Conrad Herold, but the jury decided in favor of the officers.

In a sign that he might be moving to settle his legal dispute with Mercantile-Safe Deposit and Trust Co., Eli S. Jacobs has dropped a 2-month-old lawsuit in which he accused the lender of a "malicious scheme" to block restructuring of his business empire.In court papers filed in Baltimore Circuit Court yesterday, Mr. Jacobs dropped the suit he filed Sept. 14. Mr. Jacobs retains the right to refile his suit against the bank.Mercantile's claims against Mr. Jacobs, principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles, remain unchanged.

State Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. said yesterday that his office will help Howard County's legal staff defend against a $1.5 million lawsuit filed against the county by a powerful tobacco lobbyist.Bruce C. Bereano, a lobbyist for the Tobacco Institute, filed the suit yesterday morning in Howard Circuit Court after the County Council voted 4-1 Monday night to urge local businesses to get rid of cigarette vending machines, especially those that are accessible to minors."We feel the tobacco lobby people are very wrong on this issue," Mr. Curran said.

What began as a grocery store worker's snack could become one expensive cup of frozen yogurt.In a $250,000 suit filed last week in Carroll Circuit Court, a Sykesville woman claims that a puddle of the melted remains of the cold dessert caused her to slip, fall and injure her spine during a 1989 shopping trip at the Martin's Food store in Eldersburg's Freedom Village Shopping Center.Barbara A. Vetters, of Bethway Drive in Sykesville, was "seriously, painfully and permanently injured" in her spine, neck and head, the suit says.

A group of development-wary residents have filed a lawsuit against Howard County that claims the government's process of making land-use decisions illegally denies citizens the right to challenge them by referendum. The 124-page suit, filed in federal court by residents contesting three prominent development projects, is the latest salvo in the decades-long clash over growth in the well-heeled county of about 270,000. The suit alleges that the county has violated the county charter for years by making land-use decisions via County Council resolutions and administrative decisions instead of by bill or ordinance.

IT WAS during another day of all-anthrax, all-the-time TV coverage - I am seriously thinking of dropping my cable service, just to get away from CNN and all those scary crawls - when the report about biohazard suits came on. Apparently, some anxious citizens are now snapping up biohazard suits as fast as they snapped up oxygen masks when this anthrax scare first started. But, my God, what could life possibly be like in one of these suits? Could you actually open the mail wearing one of these babies?

Johns Hopkins University has filed a lawsuit charging CareFirst and the Health Corporation of America, with failing to pay nearly $500,000 in doctors' fees.The suit was filed Monday in Baltimore Circuit Court. It came 10 days after the Insurance Division of the state Department of Licensing and Regulation froze the assets of Carefirst to protect the 118,000 members of the financially troubled health-maintenance organization.The assets of CareFirst were frozen after regulators discovered that they had fallen below state net-worth requirements.

A woman who claims a former county police officer raped her during a traffic stop two years ago filed a $70 million suit yesterday, alleging police were so tolerant of sexual harassment that it endangered women throughout the county.The 24-year-old Glen Burnie woman alleges that Officer Michael Ziegler stopped her in Pasadena Nov. 15, 1990, told her she was drunk and couldn't drive, took her to a dark parking lot in his squad car and raped her on the front seat.She "was so shocked and so horrified by the conduct that she was unable to speak or resist," the suit says.

AS THIS column reported last summer, the American press is waging a sly attack against the well-dressed man. At that time we disclosed the plot to destroy the good character of the suit.The smear campaign against the suit -- that grand old foundation of the American male's wardrobe -- aims to associate it exclusively with unspeakable people. Because RussellBakerthis column believes in the suit and hates to see a great traditional American garment badly treated, whether by incompetent dry-cleaners or a sneering press, we have stayed with the story.

The Virginia Racing Commission has attempted to halt a lawsuit that could delay the opening of the state's first racetrack and its accompanying off-track betting system.The board asked the Richmond Circuit Court yesterday to dismiss a suit filed Dec. 9 by Jim Wilson's Virginia Jockey Club that challenged the panel's decision to award the license to build the track to the Stansley Management Group.The chosen applicant, Arnold Stansley, plans to build his track, Colonial Downs, halfway between Richmond and Williamsburg and combine it with Maryland's thoroughbred circuit, using horses from Laurel/Pimlico to run at a four-month summer meet.