Law News

The man suspected of mass murder at Fort Hood is scheduled to have his first court hearing -- in his hospital room. The hearing concerns pre-trial confinement, which usually means jail, but Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's attorney will ask that his client remain in intensive care.
Also See: Primary Sources: Maj. Hasan

A plea deal is reached in the case of a black woman accused of assaulting white police officers during an altercation that began when she allegedly cut in front of other customers waiting in the checkout line at a Missouri Walmart.

A jury orders Philip Morris to pay a 61-year-old former smoker $300 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Cindy Naugle, who has emphysema, filed a lawsuit against the tobacco company. The settlement is believed to be the largest award yet among thousands of similar suits in Florida.

Raw sewage poured into the Ohio home of Charles and Mary Williams not once, but twice. They say the toxins they could never really clean killed Mary's 84-year-old mother, and they and about 30 others are suing the city.

A jury awards $100,000 to a woman whose doctors supplied photos of her naked torso to a newspaper without first obtaining her permission. Her lawyers had originally sought up to $3 million in compensatory damages. But jurors concluded the doctors had breached their fiduciary duty to the patient without actually violating her privacy -- and awarded her the more modest sum.