BRIEFCASE.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

Boss punished on license breach

NORTHRIDGE - Pamela Gedalia spent 15 years selling insurance but never bothered to get a license, which the California Department of Insurance announced Friday will cost her employer significant penalties.

Sherry Ann Shuster, owner of Northridge-based SMS Mail Depot + Insurance and Gedalia's boss, pleaded no contest to one count of transacting insurance without a license for knowingly employing and aiding an unlicensed insurance salesperson.

As part of the deal, Shuster will serve 30 days in jail, 10 days on a Caltrans work crew or 100 hours of community service, plus an additional three years of probation.

Holguin honored as Champ of Year

VAN NUYS - Bob Holguin's assistance to entrepreneurs won him the title of Small Business Champion of the Year, the U.S. Small Business Administration's Los Angeles district announced Friday. Holguin, who directs the North Los Angeles Small Business Development Center for the Valley Economic Development Center, oversees a region that spans three counties and 12 million residents. During his time heading the office, he has pushed to hire more multilingual staff members and was involved in the creation of 100 new businesses.

Jury can consider punitive damages 

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - A judge on Friday rejected a Merck & Co. lawyer's request that she halt a jury hearing on possible punitive damages for a former Vioxx user who had a heart attack after using the painkiller for four years.

Wednesday, the jury awarded John McDarby $3 million and his wife $1.5 million, saying Merck failed to warn of Vioxx's risks and that the company had misrepresented the risks to prescribing physicians. The jury also found Merck intentionally suppressed information about the arthritis drug's risks.

With jurors out of the courtroom Friday, Merck lawyer Hope S. Freiwald told the judge that the jury shouldn't even get to deliberate on punitive damages because lawyers for McDarby had not made their case.

But Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee denied the company's motion.

BK's CEO quits after turnaround

MIAMI - Burger King's chairman and chief executive resigned Friday after starting a turnaround at the No. 2 hamburger restaurant chain, but his departure raised questions about the company's impending initial public offering and its continued revolving door for leaders.

Greg Brenneman, 44, is a veteran of fixing troubled companies, such as Continental Airlines Inc. in the 1990s. He joined Burger King in August 2004 amid nearly two years of slumping sales, but the chain says it's now had eight consecutive quarters of sales growth at stores open at least a year, and that profits are small but growing.

John Chidsey, 43, was promoted from president and chief financial officer to chief executive, effective immediately.