A six-week trial in Hamilton County Court ended yesterday afternoon with the award of a $14.5 million jury verdict for Joseph Radcliff and his restoration company, CPM Construction of Indiana, against State Farm Insurance.

State Farm had filed suit for insurance fraud and RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) claims against Radcliff and CPM.  The case arose out of work done by Radcliff and CPM following the April 2006 hailstorm.  Radcliff and CPM’s allegations were that after State Farm received negative publicity in the Indianapolis media for denying hail damage claims, State Farm made unfounded claims of fraud against Radcliff and instigated the filing of felony charges against him.  Those charges were dismissed by the Marion County Prosecutor, but the negative publicity resulted in Radcliff’s personal reputation and business being destroyed.

Not only did the jury find that State Farm’s claims against Radcliff were baseless, but they also found that the Radcliff’s allegations of being defamed by State Farm were true. The jury ordered State Farm to pay Radcliff $14.5 million.

Radcliff was represented by Will Riley, lead trial counsel of the law firm Price Waicukauski & Riley, LLC along with attorneys Joe Williams, James Piatt and Jamie Kendall of the same firm and Mark McKinzie, Partner in the law firm Riley Bennett & Egloff LLP.

Riley stated, “It was a tribute to the American jury system that one man can take on the largest insurance company in the nation and win.”  McKinzie agreed, stating “This sends a strong signal to Bloomington, Illinois that Hoosiers will not put up with this sort of conduct.” Radcliff commented “I am grateful to those who believed in me and helped me get the true facts before the jury and to the jury for giving me, and my failed company, justice.”

Price Waicukauski & Riley, LLC is a law firm known for its representation of clients in complex litigation. Riley Bennett & Egloff, LLP is a law firm known for advising and representing businesses and their owners in various litigation matters.

In a strongly worded legal brief, the Obama administration has said the federal act that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman was motivated by hostility toward gays and lesbians and is unconstitutional.

The brief was filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco in support of a lesbian federal employee's lawsuit claiming the government wrongly denied health insurance coverage to her same-sex spouse.

The Justice Department says Karen Golinski's suit should not be dismissed because the law under which her spouse was denied benefits — the Defense of Marriage Act — violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection.

"The official legislative record makes plain that DOMA Section 3 was motivated in large part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals and their intimate relationships, and Congress identified no other interest that is materially advanced by Section 3," the brief reads, referring to the section in the act that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Though the administration has previously said it will not defend the marriage act, the brief is the first court filing in which it urges the court to find the law unconstitutional, said Tobias Barrington Wolff, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Bank of America Corp. is close to finalizing a deal to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims by a group of investors that the bank sold them poor-quality mortgage-backed securities that went sour when the housing market tanked, according to a person familiar with the settlement talks.

The Charlotte, North Carolina, bank was continuing talks late Tuesday with the group, which includes the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Pimco Investment Management, the world's largest bondholder, and Blackrock Financial Management. It is expected to announce an agreement as early as Wednesday, the person said on condition of anonymity because the matter was still developing.

The deal comes eight months after the group fired off a letter to Bank of America demanding that it repurchase $47 billion in mortgages that its Countrywide unit sold to them in the form of bonds. The investors have argued that Countrywide's practice of modifying loans found to have faulty paperwork or those written outside of normal underwriting standards breached signed agreements with the investors. By continuing to service bad loans rather than speeding up foreclosures, the group has claimed that Countrywide ran up servicing fees, enriching itself at the expense of investors. The New York Fed is involved because it took over assets held by American International Group Inc., which faltered under the weight of bad home loans that it insured.

Bank of America, which paid $4 billion for Countrywide in 2008, has dismissed suggestions that its handling of loan modifications and other efforts to prevent foreclosure have violated the terms of the mortgage-backed securities that the investors hold. In November, CEO Brian Moynihan said he was in day-to-day "hand-to-hand combat" with investors' demands.

Newly-unsealed court documents detail some of the early travels of James "Whitey" Bulger and his longtime girlfriend Catherine Greig following Bulger's 1995 indictment.

In an affidavit dated April 25, 1997, then-FBI Special Agent Charles Gianturco writes that Bulger and Greig spent time in New York on Long Island and in Grand Isle, La., in 1995 and 1996.

According to the affidavit, Bulger and Greig checked into a hotel under the names "Mr. and Mrs. Tom Baxter" in the fall of 1995, and that Bulger had also used that name when he befriended a man in neighboring Selden told him he was a merchant seaman.

The criminal complaint against Grieg was unsealed Thursday in Boston following the arrests of Bulger and Grieg in Santa Monica, Calif. It charges Greig with harboring and concealing Bulger.

A $188 million class-action verdict against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Sam's Club over payment to employees for rest breaks and off-the-clock work was upheld Friday by a Pennsylvania appeals court.

A three-judge Superior Court panel said there was sufficient evidence at trial to conclude there had been a breach of contract, unjust enrichment and violations of state labor laws.

The judges also ruled in a 211-page opinion that the presiding Philadelphia judge erred in determining some of the plaintiffs' legal fees, and sent that part of the case back for recalculation.

The 2006 trial, which lasted 32 days, resulted in a finding that Wal-Mart did not pay employees for all the work they performed and did not let them take their paid, mandatory rest breaks, the judges wrote. The court awarded $46 million in attorneys' fees.

Wal-Mart spokesman Greg Rossiter said the retail giant believes the court decision was wrong in a number of respects and looks forward to additional review in the courts.

Southwest Virginia landowners have reached a $3.4 million tentative settlement in a class-action lawsuit over coalbed methane rights.

The Bristol Herald Courier reports Wednesday's settlement would be split among 1,850 landowners.

The federal lawsuit alleged that Chesapeake Energy Corp. subsidiary Chesapeake Appalachia underpaid royalties to landowners for decades.

The settlement will be made final at a hearing Oct. 4.

Other similar class-action lawsuits are pending in federal court in southwest Virginia involving CNX Gas Co. and EQT Production Co.