Casden brothers back in court in round two of family feud.

APARTMENT baron Alan Casden has had a legally intense few months. He's settled a lawsuit with a group of former investors, sued his former lawyers at the now-defunct Battle Fowler firm and had his offices searched by the Los Angeles city ethics commission over campaign donations by his employees.

Now he's back in the courtroom for perhaps the oddest legal skirmish on his docket. For the past month, Casden has been locked in a second trial over the four year-old civil suit filed by his older brother Henry, the former president of Casden Properties LLC.

The trial, which is expected to go to the jury this week, has landed back in L.A. Superior Court three years after the first go-round. Henry originally sued Casden to recover part of his severance and at least $225,000 in unpaid dividends from his stake in a Casden-controlled limited partnership after he left Casden Properties following years of alleged "unwarranted personal abuse." The breaking point, the elder Casden claimed, came when Alan allegedly laid into Henry's son with a "torrent" of yet more abuse.

That jury ruled in favor of Alan Casden, who also won a countersuit against Henry and was awarded $1.6 million in attorneys' fees, plus return of his brother's interest in the partnership. But a state appellate court overturned the verdict two years later, concluding that the jury was wrongly instructed on how to decide the case.

In the second trial, the jury will have to rehear Henry Casden's original claims plus a new one: that Alan owes him $4 million in unpaid bonuses plus interest that he earned during 11 years as Alan's right-hand man.

In his own countersuit, Alan Casden accuses Henry of defrauding him by signing a three-year employment agreement without disclosing that he had just been diagnosed with diabetes.

"We deny all the charges and we'll vigorously defend against them," said Alan Casden's attorney, Tom Nolan. Calls to Henry's attorney, Hillel Chodos, were not returned.