Builder sues new Disney Hall over missing payments.

M.A. Mortenson Co., general contractor on the $274 million Walt Disney Concert Hall, has filed suit in a procedural move as it seeks payment for bills still outstanding on the project.

The company said in papers filed in Los Angeles Superior Court that it is owed $50 million on the project. Paul Cossette, Mortenson's senior vice president, said the action was taken since under California law a lien-holder must sue in order to collect on unpaid bills prior to filing a lien on a property.

"We still have to work through the value of all the changes the subcontractors performed, some of which the owner agrees with and some of which they take exception to," Cossette said.

Ron Hartwig, a Disney Hall spokesman, said such suits are not uncommon on complex projects like Disney Hall and that the parties are negotiating several issues, including whether $50 million is an accurate amount owed.

"I don't want to get into that, but our hope is we will reach a mutually satisfactory resolution," he said.

The suit named a non-profit entity called the Walt Disney Concert Hall I Inc., which holds the master lease on the building; Los Angeles County, which owns land at 111 and 151 S. Grand Ave.; and the Music Center, which operates the Concert Hall.

Cossette said Mortenson, based in Minneapolis, claims it and about a half dozen subcontractors are owed money.

Steven Guise, the attorney of record for Walt Disney Concert Hall I Inc. and a partner at Munger Tolles & Olson LLP, did not return calls.

King of Pop

Both Larry Feldman and Michael Jackson made moves last week, but it's unlikely their paths will be crossing as they did a decade ago.

Feldman said he would be leaving Fogel Feldman Ostrov Ringler & Klevens LC, his firm of 30 years, to join Kaye Scholer LLP's L.A. office. The move is one of the factors in Fogel Feldman' s planned year-end dissolution.

Feldman had obtained a multi-million dollar settlement in a civil suit alleging molestation against Jackson, charged last week by Santa Barbara police with child molestation.

Now, Feldman is busy representing attorney Johnnie Cochran in a palimony suit and the Oakland Raiders in its ongoing $1.2 billion suit against the National Football league over claims it forced the team to leave Los Angeles in 1995.

"Over the last 10 years I have been handling high profile, major litigation and in order to do that, you need lots of resources and lots of lawyers," Feldman said.

Fogel Feldman partner Jerome Ringler said the 12-attorney firm would dissolve, possibly re-forming under a new partnership or merging into a national law firm, one of which is in talks that are "very far along."

He said the partners agreed to dissolve the firm several months ago. "I think our interests diverged," he said. Ringler said he would take three to five associates with him, regardless of the new structure.

Staff reporter Amanda Bronstad can be reached at [phone] ext. 225, or at [e-mail].