Missing a plane connection cost Utah gun owner Greg Revell 10 days in jail after he was stranded in New Jersey with an unloaded firearm he had legally checked with his luggage in Salt Lake City.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court without comment refused on Tuesday to let Revell sue Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police for arresting him on illegal possession of a firearm in New Jersey and for not returning his gun and ammunition to him for more than three years.

Revell was flying from Salt Lake City to Allentown, Pa., on March 31, 2005, with connections in Minneapolis and Newark, N.J. He had checked his Utah-licensed gun and ammunition with his luggage in Salt Lake City and asked airport officials to deliver them both with his luggage in Allentown.

But the flight from Minneapolis to Newark was late, so Revell missed his connection to Allentown. The airline wanted to bus its passengers to Allentown, but Revell realized that his luggage had not made it onto the bus and got off. After finding his luggage had been given a final destination of Newark by mistake, Revell missed the bus. He collected his luggage, including his gun and ammunition, and decided to wait in a nearby hotel with his stuff until the next flight in the morning.

When Revell tried to check in for the morning flight, he again informed the airline officials about his gun and ammunition to have them checked through to Allentown. He was reported to the TSA, and then arrested by Port Authority police for having a gun in New Jersey without a New Jersey license.

A divided Michigan Supreme Court has issued an opinion that would continue to prevent an energy company from discharging treated wastewater into the headwaters of the Au Sable River in Otsego County.

The 4-3 decision would deny the water discharge plan for Merit Energy Co. because the court's majority ruled it is "manifestly unreasonable."

The company already had abandoned the discharge plan and considered the case moot. A previous Supreme Court ruling would have prevented the discharge.

The new ruling, however, could set precedents for future environmental cases in which the state has issued permits.

Conservative justices who currently form the court's minority blast the more liberal majority for using a moot case to "reach desired policy results."

A federal judge in Maine yesterday denied class-action status to four lawsuits accusing Philip Morris USA of misleading smokers about the health risks of light cigarettes.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge John A. Woodcock Jr. concerns lawsuits that were filed in Illinois, Maine, California and Washington, D.C., alleging that Henrico County-based Philip Morris USA marketed light cigarettes as healthier than regular cigarettes in violation of various consumer-protection and false-advertising laws.

The lawsuits are among 15 cases that were consolidated for pre-trial proceedings in federal court. In his ruling, Woodcock said the plaintiffs had not met the requirements for class-action status.

"While the judge has yet to rule on the remaining cases in the multidistrict litigation, we believe this decision should serve as a persuasive authority in denying class certification in those and other similar cases as well," said Murray Garnick, senior vice president and associate general counsel for Philip Morris USA parent company Altria Group Inc.

The federal court ruling in Maine yesterday was in contrast to a decision in a separate lawsuit in New Hampshire state court Monday.

In that case, a superior court judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit against Philip Morris USA over its marketing of light cigarettes. A spokesman for Philip Morris USA said the company will appeal that decision to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

The fate of the largest job bias lawsuit in the nation's history — a claim that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. shortchanged women in pay and promotions for many years — hinges on whether the Supreme Court will let the class-action case go to trial.

The court is likely to announce as soon as Monday whether it will hear the retail giant's appeal asserting that a single lawsuit cannot speak for more than 1.5 million employees.

Business lawyers and civil rights advocates are closely following the Wal-Mart case for its implications for class-action litigation.
"This may sound like just a technical, procedural issue, but because of the economics of it, class-action certification is often the most important issue to be decided," said Washington lawyer Roy T. Englert Jr.

If the high court permits the Wal-Mart case to proceed as a class action, it will put enormous pressure on the retailer to settle, he said. The plaintiffs have not specified the damages they would seek, but given the size of the class, it could mount into billions of dollars.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several large corporations have joined with Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, in urging the high court to hear the appeal and to restrict the use of class-action claims.

The Connecticut Supreme Court will be hearing arguments in a case where state lawmakers voted to end medical benefits for some impoverished legal immigrants. The justices are set to hear the case Tuesday.

A Hartford Superior Court judge ruled in December 2009 that a state law approved earlier that year violated the constitutional rights of legal immigrants by denying them medical benefits. The state appealed.

Lawmakers approved the legislation to save $9 million from a program serving about 4,800 immigrants who are elderly, disabled or are parents of needy children.

A 1996 federal law barred legal immigrants from receiving Medicaid until they had lived in the country five years. Connecticut had provided medical benefits to legal immigrants who'd been in country less than five years before last year's vote.