A federal jury in Kansas City, Kan., ruled against Mendelsohn after a judge excluded the testimony of five ex-employees from other departments at Sprint headquarters who claimed they had been released because of their age. Lawyers refer to such testimony as "me, too" evidence.

Sprint let Mendelsohn go in 2002 amid companywide layoffs that eventually numbered more than 14,000. She was part of the company's business development strategy group, which was scaled back from 75 employees to 57.

The supervisor who laid off Mendelsohn said she was the weakest performer in his unit.

Sprint's lawyers argued in Supreme Court that if a different supervisor at a company harbors bias, that's unfortunate, but it is not relevant to the claim by the person who filed the lawsuit. Sprint argued that such information unfairly prejudices a jury against a company.

The Bush administration took a middle ground between Sprint and Mendelsohn, saying evidence of age bias is sometimes admissible when it is committed by other supervisors at the same company. It cited as an example another supervisor dismissing an employee, saying the company is on a youth campaign.

In Mendelsohn's case, none of the five employees who would have testified on her behalf was laid off by Mendelsohn's supervisor and none worked in her business development group. The five were laid off as many as nine months before Mendelsohn and as many as three months after.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver sent the case back for a new trial, saying the testimony of the five ex-employees supported an alleged companywide age discriminatory scheme.

But mostly, people in Cordova talk about the discouraging wait for legal retribution for the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

It's been almost 19 years since the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground at Alaska's Bligh Reef, spurting 11 million gallons of crude into the rich fishing waters of Prince William Sound. In 1994, an Anchorage jury awarded victims $5 billion in punitive damages. That amount has since been cut in half by other courts on appeals by Exxon Mobil Corp.

Now the town of 2,200 looks anxiously to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear arguments Wednesday from Exxon on why the company should not have to pay punitive damages at all.

Scores of Cordova residents are among almost 33,000 plaintiffs — including commercial fishermen, Alaska Natives, landowners, businesses and local governments — who could see the $2.5 billion judgment taken away by the high court.

Network Solutions has forced millions of people to buy Internet domain names from them instead of cheaper competitors through a scheme that's netted the firm millions of dollars, a federal class action lawsuit filed today by Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP states. ICANN, whose policies facilitate the scheme, is also named in the suit, filed in U.S. District Court, Central District of California.

"Imagine if you asked a car dealer if they had a black convertible and were then forced to buy the car from them. Would you get a good deal? Each time someone asks Network Solutions about a domain name, the firm creates a monopoly for itself, forcing consumers to pay the price they demand," said Brian Kabateck, lead counsel in the class action and Kabateck Brown Kellner's Managing Partner.

Whenever someone searches for the availability of a domain name through Network Solutions' website, the company immediately registers the name for itself, preventing other companies from selling it and forcing consumers to pay Network Solutions' expensive fees.

If a consumer were to go to another, cheaper site to register the name, they would find the name is "unavailable." Consumers are never informed that inquiring as to a name's availability through Network Solutions results in the company holding a monopoly on selling that name.

This allows Network Solutions to continue charging substantially higher prices for domain name registration. Network Solutions charged $34.99 to register the name sought by this suit's lead plaintiff. A competitor would have charged $9.99.

Network Solutions' scheme is made possible by ICANN. ICANN allows companies that sell domain names to avoid paying registration fees for names cancelled within five days. Thus, Network Solutions can defraud customers at no cost to itself.

ICANN is aware that Network Solutions is abusing this policy and yet continues to facilitate its actions.

ICANN is the international organization, headquartered in Marina Del Rey, CA, that regulates domain names and other Internet protocols.

Kabateck Brown Kellner is one of the nation's foremost consumer law firms. Its clients have won more than $750 million against Google, Yahoo!, Farmer's Insurance, Eli Lilly and others. As a plaintiff's-only firm, Kabateck Brown Kellner is always on the consumers' side.

The fertilized eggs were implanted three days after she was dismissed from her job at a bakery in March 2005.

In its ruling Tuesday, the EU court said that under such an argument, women could delay having fertilized eggs implanted for years and claim unfair dismissal by saying they are pregnant.

Rather, the EU high court ruled that the Austrian court need only assess whether in vitro fertilization was considered by her employers as grounds for dismissal. European law bans gender discrimination.

The Supreme Court said on Monday it would decide whether police officers can search a vehicle without a warrant once the suspect has been arrested and the scene secured.

The justices agreed to hear an appeal by Arizona officials of a ruling declaring such searches unconstitutional when the scene has been secured and the suspect has been handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car under police supervision.

The high court's conservative majority in recent years has generally sided with the police while cutting back on the rights of criminal suspects in car cases.

The U.S. Constitution protects suspects against unreasonable searches and seizures of evidence.

The Arizona case will require the Supreme Court to reexamine its 1981 ruling that risks to officer safety and the preservation of evidence justify a warrantless car search as part of the arrest.

Arizona officials said the state Supreme Court effectively overruled the 1981 ruling in requiring that the police show that inherent dangers actually existed at the time of the search.

The case began in 1999 when the police in Tucson received a tip of drug activity at a house. Two officers went to the house, and when Rodney Gant answered the door he told them the owner was not home, but would return later in the day.

The officers left, but then discovered Gant had a suspended driver's license and an outstanding warrant for driving on a suspended license.

William J. Haynes II was confirmed as general counsel by the Senate in May 2001. He had discussed leaving the administration some months ago and has decided to accept an offer to work in the private sector, Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith said.

"I am sorry to see Jim leave the Pentagon," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a statement. "I have valued his legal advice and enjoyed working with him."

Daniel J. Dell'Orto, the Defense Department's principal deputy general counsel since June 2000, will serve as acting general counsel, the Pentagon said.

In 2006, President Bush nominated Haynes for a seat on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va. The nomination was withdrawn in January 2007 when it appeared that the Senate's new Democratic majority would not confirm Haynes.

A group of retired military officers opposing Bush's position on the treatment of detainees had urged lawmakers to block Haynes' appointment to the court. They contended that his role in establishing detention and interrogation policies led to abuses at the detention facility at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and called into question the military's commitment to the rule of law.

Within months of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Haynes led a tour of military attorneys to Guantanamo as he worked on plans for military tribunals for prisoners captured in the war in Afghanistan. At the time a Pentagon spokeswoman referred to "charting completely new territory" in deciding how to deal with detainees.

Haynes' replacement, Dell'Orto, has defended the military tribunal system in appearances before Congress, saying the rules governing the tribunals "afford all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized people."

In response to allegations that the Bush administration had authorized torture against some prisoners, the White House released in 2004 a series of documents. In a Pentagon memo, dated Nov. 27, 2002, Haynes recommended that then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approve the use of 14 interrogation techniques on detainees at Guantanamo, such as yelling at a prisoner during questioning and using "stress positions," like standing, for up to four hours.

In a handwritten note, Rumsfeld responded: "However, I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours." He later rescinded his approval and ordered a review of issues relating to interrogations of terrorism suspects.

Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo, who now heads the Air Force judiciary, welcomed Haynes' departure.

"I hope it will open the door for some positive change in the military commissions, but there are a couple of others still standing in the way," said Davis, who resigned as lead prosecutor of the Guantanamo detainees in October over alleged political interference in the U.S. military tribunals. "At least the odds are very good that whoever takes his place will have a more collegial and less contemptuous relationship with the uniformed judge advocates."

Davis last week said he would be a defense witness for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the driver of terror leader Osama bin Laden. Davis called it "an opportunity to tell the truth."

At Hamdan's April pretrial hearing at Guantanamo, his defense team plans to argue that alleged political interference cited by Davis violates the Military Commissions Act, Hamdan's military lawyer, Navy Lt. Brian Mizer, has said.

The justices declined to examine a trial procedure in which a jury first determines whether smokers as a group are entitled to punitive damages before establishing whether any single smoker is entitled to compensation.

Later, a new jury addresses issues unique to each alleged smoking victim who sued.

West Virginia courts are allowing the approach, which has been used in other types of lawsuits, including claims for asbestos exposure.

The second phases of such trials rarely occur, because the two sides usually settle once they know the value of the case.

Tobacco companies oppose use of the legal device, which lawyers call "reverse bifurcation."

The tobacco industry said a jury doesn't know until later in a case whether any smoker was actually harmed or how serious any injury was; which defendants if any were responsible; or the amount of compensatory damages any defendant owes to smokers.

In addition to helping resolve suits over asbestos exposure, reverse bifurcation has been applied to claims against makers of the dangerous diet drug fen-phen.

In asking the justices not to take the case, lawyers for the smokers said further delay would mean that most of their clients would die before their cases could be tried, "thus affording the defendants a free pass" for their alleged misconduct.

The smokers say the companies secretly agreed not to market a truly safer cigarette while publicly proclaiming the safety of their own particular brands.

The first phase of the trial was scheduled to begin March 18.

The case is Philip Morris USA v. Accord, 07-806.