Cynthia Haddad filed the gender discrimination lawsuit after she fired in April 2004 after 10 years at the Pittsfield Wal-Mart.

In 2007, a Berkshire Superior Court awarded Haddad nearly $1 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. The company appealed.

A judge upheld the compensatory damages but agreed to revoke the punitive damages, saying there was insufficient basis for the jury’s decision.

On Thursday, both sides make their case on the issue of the punitive damages before the Supreme Judicial Court.

The suit names St. Louis-based Arch Coal Inc., and its subsidiary, Cumberland River Coal Co.

The lawsuit alleges that the company committed blatant safety violations that caused Sturgill's death. Sturgill died Jan. 8, 2008, after his truck backed over a dumping point and continued to go down the slope. Sturgill was employed by Bates Contracting in Whitesburg, a contractor that supplies workers to coal companies. He had only been a rock-truck driver for 12 days before the accident, and had only driven on the night shift four times, the lawsuit said.

A New York City grand jury has indicted a lawyer suspected of bilking hedge funds out of more than $400 million.

The indictment returned Thursday in federal court in Manhattan charges Marc Dreier with conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. Dreier also is charged with securities fraud and wire fraud.

Dreier led the law firm Dreier LLP, with 250 attorneys and celebrity clients including ex-New York Giants star Michael Strahan (STRAY'-han). He was arrested in December after hedge funds complained he was stealing from them.

Dreier has remained jailed, unable to post enough cash or property toward his $20 million bail.

Defense attorneys say he's cooperated with a receiver appointed by the court to take control of his assets.

Prosecutors say he could face 30 years to life in prison if convicted.

Ricardo Ortiz was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. Thursday.

The 46-year-old was the fifth Texas inmate to die this year and the second of two executions in consecutive nights this week in the nation's most active death penalty state.

Ortiz was condemned for the retaliation slaying of 22-year-old Gerardo Garcia more than 11 years ago. Authorities say Garcia was killed so he couldn't testify about bank robberies the pair was suspected of carrying out.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Thursday to delay the execution. Ortiz had argued he should get federal money to pay for help filing a state clemency request.

Prosecutor Christopher Lawson says McGowan was upset because the judge refused to remove public defender Jeffrey Martin from the case.

McGowan had smuggled a bag of feces into court and spread it on Martin's hair and face before flinging the excrement at jurors. No jurors were hit.

McGowan has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping for robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and other counts in connection with a 2007 home invasion.

Jim Rosendall's cooperation with the FBI led prosecutors to recommend a sentence of no more than 11 months in prison, well below the five-year maximum.

The company used cash and plane trips to Las Vegas to curry favor with Detroit officials and win the $47 million contract to recycle sludge, according to a criminal charge unsealed earlier in the day.

The city officials were not identified.

The influence-peddling game reached a climax in fall 2007 when a city council member accepted payments to vote in favor of a deal with Synagro Technologies, the government alleges. The contract was approved, 5-4, in November 2007.

"People expected me to give things to get their support," Rosendall, former president of Synagro of Michigan, said in court.

Earlier Monday, Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. addressed speculation about a federal investigation into the conduct of city government members. "I think we'll have to see how it plays out," he said.

Rosendall's guilty plea comes more than four months after Kwame Kilpatrick resigned as mayor and went to jail in a sex-and-text scandal after admitting he lied during a civil trial to cover up a torrid affair with his chief of staff.

The city council member involved in the bribery conspiracy case was not identified, nor is "City Official A," who with others was flown to Las Vegas in September 2003 at a cost of $20,000 to see a boxing match, the government said.

In court filings Tuesday, lawyers for the VA and the veterans said they had reached agreement to settle a class-action lawsuit originally filed by five veterans groups alleging invasion of privacy. The money, which will come from the U.S. Treasury, will be used to pay veterans who can show they suffered actual harm, such as physical symptoms of emotional distress or expenses incurred for credit monitoring.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson in Washington must approve the terms of the settlement before it becomes final.

"This settlement means the VA is finally accepting full responsibility for a huge problem that continues to worry millions of veterans, retirees, service members and families," said Joe Davis, spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars, which was not involved in the lawsuit.

VA spokesman Phil Budahn said: "We want to assure veterans there is no evidence that the information involved in this incident was used to harm a single veteran."

The lawsuit came after a VA data analyst in 2006 admitted that he had lost a laptop and external drive containing the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of up to 26.5 million veterans and active-duty troops.

The laptop was later recovered intact, but a blistering report by the VA inspector general faulted both the data analyst and his supervisors for putting veterans at unreasonable risk. The data analyst had lost the information when his suburban Maryland home was burglarized on May 3, 2006, after taking the data home without permission.

The VA employee promptly notified his superiors, but due to a series of delays, veterans were not told of the theft until nearly three weeks later, on May 22. Then-VA Secretary James Nicholson later said he was "mad as hell" that he wasn't immediately told about the burglary.