Blessed event is a matter for litigation.

For Torrance resident Lisa Denise Tyler, things seem to happen in pairs.

Tyler gave birth to twin boys on July 26. But instead of handing out cigars, she handed out a couple of lawsuits, both of them to Redondo Beach lawyer Stephen R. Cohen, 40, who she claims fathered the twins after he secretly removed a condom when the couple were having intercourse.

Tyler, 26, filed a paternity suit last month, and last week, claiming that Cohen “knowingly removed the preventive device which he promised and started to use.” She filed an additional suit against the attorney, claiming assault and battery and seeking $400,000 in punitive damages.

In the second suit, Tyler claims that the pregnancy and childbirth caused her “disfigurement, pain, suffering, confinement, delay of educational goals, emotional distress and shame.” She was forced to move in with her parents and to go on welfare, she said.

“He told me he would be responsible for birth control,” Tyler said. “I figured he was a responsible guy.”

Cohen in an interview last week said the condom did slip off, but that “it was not intentional.”

Although he said he has seen the twins, Nathaniel and Averyahm several times since their birth, Cohen said there is no evidence that he’s the father. He maintains that Tyler was also seeing someone else at the time she became pregnant, and that he would like the other man to take the same blood test he will take Nov. 30.

Calling the assault and battery suit baseless, Cohen said he had “no problems with the paternity suit,” which seeks an unspecified amount of child support. “If they are mine, I intend to exercise visitation, partake in their upbringing and pay child support. That would be my moral duty.”

Cohen compared the relationship to some of the circumstances in the current popular movie “Fatal Attraction,” where a spurned woman obsessively pursues a man.

Tyler, however, says that is not the issue, and that she is only seeking financial support for the children.

If a blood test proves he’s not the father, Cohen said, he’ll have only one word to say: “Goodby.”

--ADRIANNE GOODMAN

The guest of honor listened attentively for a moment or two when 83-year-old Helen True struck up the chords of “Happy Birthday” at a party Wednesday at the Golden West Convalescent Hospital in Hawthorne.

Then, the birthday girl turned her attention to her gifts: a trio of chocolate-dipped, bow-tied Milk Bones.

Duchess, a black German shepherd with fawn-colored markings, munched on the doggie treats during the celebration of her adoption by the hospital and its 105 patients five years ago. Duchess was dressed up in a fancy pink and blue bow for the party.

The hospital adopted Duchess from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the gentle canine has been a source of comfort and delight to elderly patients at the hospital, said Mary Jackson, activity director.

Patients and staff give numerous examples of Duchess’ loyalty and intelligence. There was the time that she alerted hospital authorities, by her persistent barking, to a patient who had fallen and needed help, they said.

“That dog sits outside our door and watches out for us at night,” said True, after playing her piano serenade to Duchess.

“She’s good company,” said 68-year-old Andy Zumwalt, a wheelchair patient who petted the dog gently during the birthday ceremonies. Leafa Hamilton, 89, wore a “Happy Birthday Duchess” button in honor of the hospital’s trusty mascot.

Officials from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said its Pets for People program attempts to find animals that are compatible with their new owners. Duchess, for example, is a particularly amiable dog, able to cope with many people, said Jane Evans, a humane society staff member who attended the party.

Dogs and cats are available for adoption at a nominal charge at the society’s three shelters, including one at 12910 Yukon Ave. in Hawthorne, she said.

Duchess is one of the society’s success stories, she said.

Not only has the German shepherd found a good home, Evans said, but the patients at Golden West have found a loving mascot.

“You can see the patients’ faces change when she comes around,” she said. “Their eyes light up.”

--BARBARA BAIRD

T’was the week before Thanksgiving

And all through the debate,

Politicians pondered

Over three reindeer’s fate.

A Christmas tree salesman

Wanted live animals on display,

But a few officials cried exploitation

And said, “No way!”

Three deer in a pen

Would be cruel, they said.

But any other way and

The deer would be dead.

The deer exhibit

Helps to sell trees ,

And eight citizens joined

The businessman’s pleas.

The audience applauded

When the council said yes

And now Redondo Beach will have

Three fallow deer as guests.

Councilwoman Marcia Martin was upset with the council’s 3-2 vote to grant Stuart Miller a wild-animal permit to display three fallow deer from Dec. 1-24 at his Christmas tree lot at 315 N. Pacific Coast Highway, in front of City Hall.

Although Martin did not want to “look like the Grinch that stole Christmas,” she called the merchant’s promotional plan “a gross display of cruelty to animals.”

Martin, a member of the National Humane Society, recalled a study done last year about deer being exploited during the Christmas holidays, some of them dying of heart attacks after being frightened.

However, her arguments, and those of Mayor Barbara J. Doerr and Councilman Archie Snow, were unsuccessful.

Miller, who owns 160 fallow deer that he displays on Christmas tree lots in California and Nevada, told the council that he is doing the animals a favor by raising them for display for one month each year.

“Every one that I buy stays with me until he dies of natural causes,” Miller said. “Every one that I don’t buy goes to a hunting ranch someplace in the United States and he ends up on the wall.”

The deer must be penned from October through mid-January anyway, he said, because it is breeding season and the bucks would kill each other if they were together.

Miller lives in Malibu and raises the deer on a ranch in the Antelope Valley. He said only one of his deer has died while on display and that happened when a stranger to the animal removed the deer from its pen.

Miller said he has approval from the U. S. Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Fish and Game to exhibit the deer.

Snow said he objected to the deer being displayed as “reindeer” when they are actually fallow deer. But Miller insisted that fallow deer, which have a yellowish coat with white spots in the summer, have been portrayed as reindeer in Christmas movies and cartoons.

Resident Jeff Sandler asked the council to allow the deer exhibit, hoping that it will make children think twice before hunting. “I was terrifically affected by Bambi,” he said.

--KAREN ROEBUCK

Torrance City Councilman Bill Applegate drew laughs from a City Hall audience the other night as the council’s seats rotated on the auditorium’s motorized stage.

“I always wanted to make a moving speech,” Applegate said. “Maybe this is as close as I’ll get.”

JEFFREY L. RABIN