The ruling gives Northwest the advantage in stalled talks with attendants, who hoped to gain leverage with the chance to strike the airline. They're balking at $195 million in annual pay and benefit cuts imposed as the carrier works toward a second-quarter bankruptcy exit.

Northwest enacted the cuts July 31 after the union for its 9,300 attendants rejected two contracts negotiated by their leaders. The savings are part of the Eagan, Minn.-based airline's $1.4 billion in annual reductions in labor spending.

Northwest said in a statement that it was pleased with the ruling and that it hoped to reach a consensual agreement with the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.

The union was "very surprised" by the decision, spokesman Ricky Thornton said, and the group is considering whether to appeal.

The union wants the National Mediation Board that governs airline labor disputes to "release" it from talks with Northwest, triggering a 30-day countdown to a possible strike. The sides last met face to face Feb. 2, and no new talks are scheduled. The attendants are urging federal lawmakers to press the mediation board to grant the release.

Unlike Northwest's other unions, the attendants don't have a claim in the airline's bankruptcy. The group would have had a $182 million claim had it ratified a contract in 2006. Thornton said there is a risk the attendants will get nothing if they don't reach an agreement before Northwest exits bankruptcy.

In its ruling, the appeals court said the U.S. Railway Labor Act "forbids an immediate strike when a bankruptcy court approves a debtor carrier's rejection of a collective-bargaining agreement" that is subject to the act and allows imposition of new terms.

"For airline unions, this is a big setback," said John Gallagher, a lawyer for the Air Transport Association, the Washington-based trade group for major U.S. airlines.

Northwest filed for bankruptcy Sept. 14, 2005, the same day as larger rival Delta Air Lines Inc. Delta expects to exit bankruptcy by April 30.

In Oregon alone, at least 28 animals have died after eating the food - including five dogs in Springfield and one in Pleasant Hill, and two cats each in Eugene and Springfield and one in Pleasant Hill. Ill animals also have been listed in Veneta and Cottage Grove, according to the latest numbers from the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association.

"This is really tragic. It sounds like it is going to be really huge," said Michele Smith, an attorney with the Eugene firm of Johnson Clifton Larson & Schaller.

People with potential legal claims react in different ways, she said. Some wait until most of the facts are known. Others want to rush right to a lawyer, Smith said.

advertisement Pet owners such as Allan Hall of Eugene are not waiting. Hall said he has been angry since his 15-year-old dachshund, Tabbitha, died March 13, within days of eating food that was subject to the recall.

"This was my best friend for 15 years. I was with her since she was six weeks old," Hall said Thursday.

Hall compiled his veterinary records, got help from a retailer to get a copy of his receipt for the food and contacted the Food and Drug Administration to register his case. Then he got on the Internet to contact a law firm in Wisconsin that has filed a class action lawsuit.

"I am interested in joining a class action lawsuit," Hall said. "The only thing that will make me feel better is that this company will not make pet food again. That's what I want."

Smith said pet owners should save unused food portions, labels from containers, store receipts, veterinary reports and bills, along with photographs of their pet or other evidence that might bolster their legal claims.

The Menu Foods litigation is only beginning, she said. Company and government officials have not yet confirmed the source of the problem, much less who may be responsible and what can be done about it. The company has said publicly that it will cover the veterinary bills of affected animals.

Nevertheless, hundreds of pet owners already have contacted the Seattle law firm of Myers and Company, one of the firms seeking class action status for a lawsuit against Menu Foods, said Tom Baisch, an associate attorney with the firm.

Affected pet owners need not hurry to sue, he says. The first hurdle will be convincing a judge that the cases are enough in common to be handled as a class. If so, the cases will be consolidated, with a panel of attorneys working to resolve it for all affected pet owners.

If a judge accepts the suit as a class action, affected pet owners are presumed to be a part of the class, he said. However, they need to file their information with the Food and Drug Administration or contact lawyers who have filed the lawsuits so they can receive information about the case, he said.

Pet owners can contact the FDA consumer complaint coordinator at (425) 483-4949 to report cases of illness or death due to the recalled food. Owners must report the specific product name, lot numbers of the product, and provide a veterinarian's report and diagnosis.

Owners need not pay legal fees to be part of the case. When the case settles, they can choose whether to accept the deal or withdraw and pursue their own lawsuit, Baisch said.

"It could take months. It could take years," Baisch said.

The list of recalled food: www.menufoods.com/recall

The CRRA and Enron deal that went into effect in March 2001 called for Enron to buy power produced at CRRA's trash-to-energy plant in Hartford and pay the agency nearly $2.4 million a month for more than 11 years. Under the agreement, CRRA transferred $220 million to Enron.

Enron, once the nation's seventh-largest company, sought bankruptcy protection in December 2001 when it could no longer hide billions of dollars in debt. The collapse wiped out thousands of jobs, more than $60 billion in market value and more than $2 billion in pension plans. Several executives were convicted and sent to prison.

The company stopped paying the CRRA after filing for bankruptcy protection.

Murtha Cullina did not admit any wrongdoing, and Blumenthal's office agreed to drop its lawsuit in return for the firm's cooperation in other lawsuits involving the failed Enron deal.

Blumenthal said the state has now recouped nearly $151 million of the $220 million lost by CRRA, which serves 118 Connecticut cities and towns.

''This $16.25 million recovers for the law firm's key contribution to the Enron catastrophe — misadvising CRRA about looming financial debacle and legal disaster in the deal,'' Blumenthal said.

The state has sued numerous major banks, accounting firms, rating agencies and other financial institutions across the country over the Enron deal, claiming they contributed to the company's fraud. Some of the cases have been settled, while about 20 others remain pending in federal court.

Late last year, the state reached a $21 million settlement with Hawkins, Delafield & Wood LLP, another law firm involved in the deal.

Blumenthal said Murtha Cullina failed to recognized the deal's flaws.

Alfred E. Smith Jr., managing partner for the law firm, maintained that its advice to the CRRA was proper, given the information at the time.

''The settlement appropriately reflects our long-held position that we did nothing wrong in this matter,'' Smith said Thursday. ''We settled because, despite the strength of our legal case, any litigation is uncertain.''

Smith said that at the time of the deal, no one knew that Enron was on the verge of collapse. He said many ratings agencies and other financial institutions believed Enron was stable.

''Looking back ... I'm sure none of us would have been involved (with Enron),'' Smith said.

CRRA officials had called the Enron deal a legitimate energy transaction, but Blumenthal said it was an illegal loan.

A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, Nabers began his legal career as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. He went on to practice law for 12 years with a Birmingham firm, where he hired some of the attorneys who would go on to form Maynard Cooper & Gale, and left to join Protective Life Corp. in 1979. Starting out as general counsel, Nabers later became chairman, president and CEO of the corporation. He retired in 2002.

The author of "The Case for Character: Looking at Character from a Biblical Perspective," Nabers currently serves as an adjunct instructor at the Samford University Beeson Divinity School.

"After almost 30 years, it is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to practice alongside Drayton again," Fournier J. "Boots" Gale III, chairman of the firm's executive committee, said in a statement. Gale also serves as president of the Alabama State Bar.

The United States has filed a suit in federal court in Raleigh seeking to bar Raymond A. Renfrow of Elm City, N.C., from preparing federal income tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, alleges that Renfrow prepared tax returns for customers that contained fictitious or inflated deductions. The suit alleges that Renfrow has prepared an estimated 993 returns since 2001 that have caused an estimated loss to the U.S. Treasury of more than $2.9 million.

The complaint further alleges that Renfrow prepared false and fraudulent federal trust returns based on a tax fraud scheme promoted by Trust Education Services and National Trust Services. Information on other court cases related to those schemes is available at: http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv04081.htm and www.usdoj.gov/tax/prtax/txdv03332.htm. Misuse of trusts is included in the IRS's 2007 list of the Dirty Dozen tax scams. http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=167983,00.html

The lawsuit asks the court to order Renfrow to provide a list to the Justice Department of his customers' names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and Social Security numbers. Since 2001 the Justice Department has obtained more than 230 injunctions to stop the promotion of tax fraud schemes and the preparation of fraudulent returns.

The institute's "Jackpot Justice" study is the first to calculate both the U.S. legal system's direct and indirect costs, study author Lawrence McQuillan says.

Direct costs refer to damage awards, lawyer fees and defense costs -- as well as administrative costs from lawsuits arising after someone breaks a contract or violates a trust resulting in injury to another's person's body, property, reputation, legal rights and the like.

Indirect costs refer to the legal system's impact on research and development spending, the cost of so-called defensive medicine and the related rise in healthcare spending and reduced healthcare access, McQuillan says.

Lost sales of new products "from less innovation" amounts $367.1 billion, the study concluded.

The overseer of the Internet's addressing system rejected for the second time the creation of a ".xxx" top-level domain, supported by some as a way to isolate adult content on the Internet.

Nine board members for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted against the proposal on Friday at ICANN's 28th International Public Meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. Five voted in favor, while one member abstained from voting, said Andrew Robertson, an ICANN spokesman. ICANN will hold a news conference on Friday afternoon to discuss the meeting's decisions.

Those rejecting a ".xxx" top-level domain said its creation could set ICANN up as a potential regulator of content on the Internet, which is not in its mandate. ICANN is responsible for the administration of the domain name system (DNS), the index that enables the translation of Web site URLS (uniform resource locators) into numerical IP addresses that can be called up into a browser.

In May 2006, ICANN also rejected creating the domain. Critics of the new domain said it could make adult content easier to find, but others argued that would also make it easier to filter out with software. The domain also raised concerned over free speech and how content on a Web site may be classified.