Hundreds of children in the Washington D.C. area were exposed to dangerous levels of lead for city tap water from 2001 to 2003, a new study has concluded. According to the study, to be published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, some infants and toddlers in high-risk neighborhoods were exposed to potentially IQ-damaging lead levels when lead leaching into the water supply starting in 2001. The results of the new study contradict safety reports issued by federal and local officials

The Georgia-based peanut butter producer linked to a nationwide salmonella outbreak has been repeatedly cited for violating sanitation and cleanliness standards, the New York Times reports. According to reports from 2006, 2007 and 2008, the Peanut Corporation of America-owned plant failed to properly sanitize food-contact surfaces and failed to make sure that equipment was cleanable and properly designed. The salmonella outbreak has been blamed for at least 500 illnesses and seven deaths.

A federal appeals court has reversed a lower court ruling that denied attorneys fees to a disabled lawyer who sought long-term disability benefits from insurer First Unum. In reversing, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals found that Southern District of New York Judge Thomas P. Griesa had erred in denying prejudgment interest and fees because First Unum had not acted in bad faith. The case is Slupinski v. First Unum Life Insurance Co.

A Los Angeles judge has dismissed a class-action lawsuit accusing Takata Corp. of manufacturing seatbelt buckles that came unbuckled on their own during accidents. In the ruling, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy Lewis rejected plaintiffs’ claims that Takata sold buckles that had not been properly tested, an attorney for the company said. Total potential damages in the case were estimated to be about $247 million. An attorney for the plaintiffs said they plan to appeal the decision.

The New York Police Department has agreed to pay $4.6 million in a post-trial settlement to resolve a lawsuit filed by a man who was catastrophically injured when he was run over by a police officer. Gabriel Framowitz suffered head wounds and brain damage when he was hit by a patrol car while leaving a wedding in 2002. The officer driving the car subsequently admitted that he had lied about the circumstances surrounding the accident.

The Supreme Court has ruled against a Texas woman in her attempt to collect more than $400,000 in pension savings she said was wrongly awarded to her mother. The high court found that while Liv Kennedy legally waived her rights to her ex-husband’s pension, his former employer DuPont had acted properly under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act in awarding his ex-wife the money anyway. The couple’s daughter, Kari Kennedy, said although she was disappointed in the ruling, she was relieved to bring closure to 25 years of litigation.

The Supreme Court on Monday threw out a lawsuit by a Los Angeles man wrongfully convicted of murder and gave district attorneys a broad shield against being sued even if their management mistakes send an innocent person to prison.

A former Marine, convicted in a 1979 shooting in Long Beach, spent 24 years in prison largely on the word of a heroin addict who had worked as a jailhouse informant for police and prosecutors. The informant lied on the witness stand when he denied receiving a benefit for testifying for police, a judge found.

The Marine was freed in 2004 and he sued former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. John K. Van de Kamp and top deputy Curt Livesay, contending they allowed prosecutors to regularly use jailhouse informants and did not take steps to make sure they were telling the truth.

In this case, the trial prosecutor did not know the informant was lying because other prosecutors in the sprawling district attorney’s office did not share information.

The Supreme Court mostly set aside the facts of the case and focused on the potential harm of allowing top prosecutors to be sued. District attorneys who are managing teams of prosecutors should not face the fear they might be sued years later by resentful suspects, the justices said.

In the past, the court said trial prosecutors were entitled to absolute immunity for their courtroom work. In Monday’s ruling the high court extended that shield to cover district attorneys and other chief prosecutors for any actions that involve prosecutions and trials.

Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said top prosecutors could be sued for “administrative” failures. The decision rejected Van de Kamp’s claim of immunity and cleared the lawsuit to proceed.

But the Supreme Court rejected the distinction between administrative and management tasks and said management of trial-related information was a prosecution function.

“We conclude that a prosecutor’s absolute immunity extends to all these claims” about tracking jailhouse informants because they are “directly connected with the conduct of a trial,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said.

It was the fourth decision in a week siding with police and prosecutors. Last week, the court extended the so-called exclusionary rule and said tainted evidence could be used if police made an honest mistake in searching a suspect. In that case, an officer acted on an arrest warrant that should have been removed from a police computer.

That same day, the court also threw out a lawsuit against police in Utah who, based on the word of an informant, burst into a house without a warrant. The justices did not decide whether the search was illegal but concluded that police were immune from being sued.

In a second decision Monday, the court said police could stop and frisk a passenger in a stopped car, even if there was no reason to suspect the passenger had done anything wrong.

The ruling in favor of district attorneys is consistent with the Supreme Court’s trend of limiting lawsuits, especially against the government.

Washington state will pay $800,000 to resolve a lawsuit brought by three women who claimed they were victims of sexual harassment while working at the state’s Department of Labor and Industries. According to the lawsuit, a coworker and supervisor repeatedly harassed and intimidated the women and department management refused to intervene. The lawsuit initially sought $1.1 million in damages on behalf of the three women.

A 2008 study suggesting a link between the industrial chemical trichloroethylene, also called TCE, and Parkinson’s disease might have been enough for 53-year-old Ed Abney to finally receive worker’s compensation benefits. However, it was not. Abney’s case highlights a widening conflict between science and law that prevents many workers from receiving payments for workplace-related injuries.

A deadly 2008 condominium fire near Seven Springs Mountain Resort was the result of negligence by the condo’s owner, the condo association, the manufacturer of the fireplace there, a chimney cleaning company and others, a wrongful death lawsuit claims. The family of Jonathan Murt also alleges that the condo association knew about problems with fireplace chimneys in the units but failed to address the safety issues. The lawsuit seeks at least $200,000 in damages.