Health officials confirmed Tuesday that peanuts from a West Texas processor have tested positive for the strain salmonella linked to more than 600 illnesses and nine deaths. The plant, operated by Peanut Corp. of America, is the second facility owned by the Virginia-based company to be tied to one of the largest food recalls in the nationâ??s history. Peanut Corp. of America has filed for bankruptcy protection amid civil and criminal allegations that it knowingly shipped tainted food.

The family of a man who died in Detroit police custody will receive $2 million under a settlement reached Monday with the city. According to attorneys, James Stone suffered a heart attack after being arrested on a parole violation but was never transported to a hospital by police. Prior to the settlement, the presiding judge recommended a default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs citing discovery and procedural problems among city attorneys.

Appeals Court Rules Against Arbitration Clauses

A federal appeals court has ruled that state courts may declare arbitration clauses unconscionable in cases where individual claims would yield minor sums. In a unanimous decision, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals found that a lower court had erred in finding that a class action was barred by a clause requiring claimants to submit to arbitration. The ruling revives a class-action lawsuit against American Express over customer rebates. The case is Homa v. American Express Co.

A recent case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit points up the difficulty of making such judgments in the age of the Internet.

Two inventors from Pittsburgh developed a computerized method for using weather data to predict commodities prices and energy costs. But their efforts to patent the formula were rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a decision upheld by the federal appeals court.

The inventors and their intellectual property lawyers argue that novel business concepts deserve patent protection as much as physical machines that transform industries.

They have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the appeals court ruling. They say that without the ability to profit from such inventions, the biotech and information services companies won’t be willing to invest in research and development of other breakthroughs.

The patent office’s and court’s rejections of the inventor’s business method patent claim follows years of rather liberal interpretations by patent examiners as to what qualified as an invention. And the new standard imposed, that the invention must involve a machine or a physical transformation, threatens to put the brakes on the busiest area of patent application and analysis.

For more than 20 years, W.R. Grace & Co. operated a vermiculite mine in Libby, Mont., producing bags of puffy white granules that were marketed all over the U.S., perfect for insulating attics and aerating gardens and potting soil.

The trouble was, the vermiculite contained small quantities of asbestos, a cancer-causing fiber that could, even in tiny quantities, fatally lodge itself in the lungs.

The material posed a risk not only to mine workers, but also to those who touched the workers’ clothing or used the high school running track and community ice-skating rink, both built with asbestos-laden mine tailings donated by the company.

That was the Maryland-based chemical company’s “secret,” federal prosecutors alleged Monday as W.R. Grace and five of its former executives went on trial here in a case that environmental law experts describe as the most significant criminal prosecution the U.S. has ever filed against an alleged corporate polluter.

Raw vermiculite from Libby was processed at sites around the country, including several California locations — Newark, Santa Ana, Glendale and Thermal among them. Many of the sites were subsequently found to be contaminated and have become part of the massive wave of lawsuits that forced W.R. Grace into bankruptcy reorganization in 2001. The company last year announced plans to settle the claims.

An estimated 1,200 Libby residents died or developed asbestos-related diseases from the asbestos fibers that permeated nearly every corner of the small town.

The owner of a chimpanzee shot and killed by police after it attacked a 55-year-old woman last week will likely be named in a lawsuit, according to legal experts. Attorneys say the state could also be accused of liability in the incident because it should have known the animal was a risk to the public. The victim of the attack remains in critical condition at the Cleveland Clinic as doctors evaluate her injuries.

Retail giant Wal-Mart has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of racial bias. According to the lawsuit, Wal-Mart discriminated against African-American truck driving applicants. Under the settlement, Wal-Mart has also agreed to hire additional black applicants and pursue other diversity initiatives. The case is Nelson v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

A Vermont jury has cleared a Burlington eye doctor of liability in a lawsuit that accused the 72-year-old man of performing unnecessary surgeries. After deliberating for nearly 11 hours, jurors found that the Doctor had provided a reasonable standard of care for a woman who underwent cataract surgery. The lawsuit sought $300,000 in compensatory damages and between $300,000 and $450,000 in punitive damages.

A group of legal experts are proposing that lawmakers ought to intervene to change how the Supreme Court operates. In a letter to congressional leaders, 34 prominent law professors and jurists propose a variety of changes to how to court chooses cases, how justices are appointed and how long they should serve. However, the group says it is not confident that their proposals would lead to immediate change, noting that similar efforts have failed in the past.

After nearly a on vacation, the Supreme Court is scheduled to decide in the coming months several cases that could prove significant for the plaintiffsâ?? bar. Among the issues before the court are two potentially important civil rights cases, at least two cases dealing with federal pre-emption, one punitive damages case and one employment discrimination case. The court is currently scheduled to hear 18 cases during its February and March sessions.