Just the week before last, Federal regulators sued Ernst & Young for $560 million for failing to spot problems at a Dallas-based savings and loan, the Western Savings Association.

Shareholders and Cendant are separately suing Ernst & Young, the company's former accountant.

Lawyers whose clients have sued Ernst & Young and KPMG in New York, North Carolina and Florida described several common elements in the unrelated cases.

The union sued Ernst again in August 1993 for knowingly selling toilets that violate state water conservation requirements.

Cendant has sued Ernst & Young, which was CUC's auditor, contending that it knew of the fraud and covered it up.

Not surprisingly, they've sued Ernst & Young for selling them bad advice.

A week after the Edison case, the S.E.C. sued Ernst & Young, accusing the firm of violating ethics rules by having a seven-year business partnership with a client, PeopleSoft.

Regulators sued Ernst & Young, claiming it is responsible for audits that failed to detect huge losses at Western Savings.

The inaccuracy was not disclosed at the time, but came out after CUC had been merged into another company, which concluded there had been major fraud and sued Ernst & Young.

Last March, Federal regulators sued Ernst & Young for $560 million for failing to detect and report huge losses at the association, which was seized in 1986.