LAW & REGULATION

USAir has agreed to discontinue “backdoor hiring” as part of a settlement with black pilots who had contended that they were discriminated against. U.S. District Judge Donald Ziegler in Pittsburgh ruled last month that Larry C. Taylor, 41, of Carson, and Philip A. Garland, 37, of Las Vegas, had been denied jobs because of an informal hiring system that gave preference to friends and relatives of employees. Garland eventually joined USAir in 1984 and Taylor in 1988. Ziegler ruled that the men were entitled to back pay and seniority retroactive to the dates in 1982 when they should have been hired.