BRIEFCASE KOHL'S SCORES HIGH IN CUSTOMER POLL.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

Kohl's, JCPenney and Wal-Mart were among the top finishers in a study released Tuesday measuring customer satisfaction with the nation's largest moderate-price and discount department stores.

Using a customer satisfaction index scale that ranges from 100 to 1,000, Kohl's ranked highest among moderate-price department stores, with an overall index score of 750.

Kohl's, which has more than 400 stores and plans to open 30 more in Southern California, performed well across all factors that constitute customer satisfaction, according to the survey by Westlake Village-based J.D. Power and Associates.

In order of importance, those factors are: value, sales and service associates, services, store environment, merchandise, reputation, sales and promotion and store location.

Wal-Mart ranked highest in the discount department store segment with an overall index score of 756, receiving top ratings from customers in value, sales and service associates, merchandise and sales and promotions.

Lee suing Marvel for 'Spider' bucks

NEW YORK - The creative force behind Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and Daredevil filed a $10 million lawsuit Tuesday, charging his old comic book company is cheating him out of millions of dollars in movie profits.

Stan Lee, who crafted a menagerie of superpowered heroes with very human flaws, now claims Marvel Entertainment Inc. has tried to shut him out of the ``jackpot'' success of this summer's ``Spider-Man'' movie.

Lee's attorneys filed court papers in Manhattan federal court, claiming that Marvel signed a deal to give their client 10 percent of any profits from his characters used in films and television shows.

T-bills take fall to 44-year lows

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury securities fell in Tuesday's auction to the lowest levels since 1958.

The Treasury Department sold $16 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 1.190 percent, down from 1.410 percent last week. An additional $16 billion was sold in six-month bills at a rate of 1.225 percent, down from 1.395 percent.

The three-month rate was the lowest since Aug. 4, 1958, when the bills sold for 1.164 percent. The six-month rate was the lowest since the government began selling these bills on a regular basis in 1958.

In a separate report, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday that the average yield for one-year constant maturity Treasury bills, the most popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, dipped to 1.46 percent last week from 1.51 percent the previous week.

TRW close to sale of auto-parts arm

TRW Inc., the military contractor that agreed to be sold to Northrop Grumman, is close to a deal to sell its automotive-parts business to the Blackstone Group for about $4.6 billion after months of stop-and-start negotiations, executives close to the discussions said Tuesday.

The deal could be announced by next week, the executives said, though they cautioned that the talks could still fall apart. Indeed, TRW came close to selling its automotive-parts business in August for about $5 billion to Blackstone and the Carlyle Group, but the deal collapsed when the bidders had misgivings about the price.

Now that the asking price has come down - and the Carlyle Group has dropped out - TRW and Blackstone have agreed to the deal in principle and are working out the details, the executives said.

Port talks are set to resume today

SAN FRANCISCO - Both sides in the West Coast ports dispute resume bargaining today wondering whether progress in their contract dispute is the new rule - or the exception that proves labor peace remains beyond the horizon.

After a week's break, longshoremen and shipping companies were slated to renew their first party-to-party talks with a federal mediator since Nov. 5. They've spent the break mulling pension proposals, the next hot topic in a clash that led to last month's 10-day shutdown of 29 major Pacific ports.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union says retirement benefits must be sweetened in exchange for the introduction of computerized cargo tracking systems that will make dockside work more efficient but also cost jobs.