A federal appeals court has revived a group of lawsuits that seeks to hold major utilities liable for carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming. In reversing the dismissal, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals held that New York state and others need not defer to a definitive policy statement before bringing their suits to trial. The suits seek to force American Electric Power Co. and five other operators of fossil-fuel-fired power plants to cap and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Facebook has agreed to pay at least $9.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over the social networking site’s Beacon advertising system. Facebook users alleged that the site violated privacy laws by publishing video rental histories on the Web. Beacon was launched in 2007 and tracked user activities on non-Facebook sites and then reported them to users’ friends, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Texas Motor Speedway was significantly negligent in an accident that left a boy with traumatic brain injuries that limit his mobility and mental capacity, a Texas jury has ruled. Jurors awarded the parents of Ryan Davies more than $11 million in damages for his injuries. Davies was struck by another boy driving a miniature race car in the parking lot of the Lil’ Texas Motor Speedway, a paved one-fifth mile at the race track.

Women who took a combination hormone replacement therapy may be more likely to develop fatal lung cancer, according to a new study. Researchers from the Women’s Health Initiative concluded that women taking a combination of estrogen and progestin were 28 percent more likely to develop the disease. The study was published in the journal The Lancet.

Pfizer has accused a doctor-consultant involved in multidistrict litigation over the drug maker’s anti-seizure medication Neurontin of witness tampering, American Lawyer reports. Pfizer contends that the expert attempted to influence a doctor who treated the alleged victim in the case by providing her with internal company documents. The case stems from the 2002 suicide of Hartley Shearer who was taking Neurontin at the time of his death. Pfizer has also recently faced accusations of witness intimidation in the case.

The family of a man who died after reporting to Maimonides Medical Center complaining of chest pains has filed a lawsuit accusing the hospital of negligence. According the lawsuit, Jacob Goldbrenner suffered a heart attack while hospital staff fumbled to locate the key to the facility’s cardiac lab, and even the lab itself, over a five-hour period. Staff also failed to properly intubate Goldbrenner during treatment.

The federal government has agreed to pay $5 million to the family of two vacationers who were swept over a waterfall at a Hawaii national park in 2003. According to the lawsuit, rangers at the Haleakala National Park near Maui failed to warn the family that flash flooding could create dangerous conditions. Kevin Brown and his 8-year-old daughter died after being washed over the falls.

Dannon Co. has agreed to pay $35 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused the company of making false health claims about Activia and DanActive yogurts. Under the settlement, consumers who purchased the yogurts will be eligible to receive up to $100 in refunds. The settlement also calls for the company to amend labeling and advertising for the products.

A former GlaxoSmithKline executive testified that the drug maker knew as early as 2001 that the antidepressant Paxil could likely cause birth defects in the fetuses of pregnant women. In a videotaped deposition, former Glaxo drug-safety executive Jane Nieman said that the company was “almost certain” that Paxil was to blame for a heart defect that caused a patient to abort a fetus in 2001. More than 600 lawsuits allege that Paxil hid the risks of Paxil in order to increase profits.

An Illinois woman involved in a lawsuit over the alleged wrongful death of an 89-year-old Alzheimer’s patient has pleaded guilty to criminal neglect, according to the Chicago Tribune. Sarah Wentworth died of hypothermia earlier this year after wandering out of the Arbor of Itasca nursing home in freezing temperatures. Heidi Leon, the nursing assistant on duty at the time, failed to respond when Wentworth triggered an alarm, prosecutors said. A wrongful death lawsuit is currently pending against the facility