Not so, said Washington attorney Theodore Olson, representing a manufacturer of women's accessories.

The idea that such agreements are automatically illegal is "outdated, misguided" and the restriction itself is anti-competitive, Olson argued.

The case stands at the intersection of discount chains and such niche retailers as Kay's Kloset in Texas, which lowered its prices below an agreed-upon minimum with manufacturer Leegin Creative Leather Products Inc. Leegin cut off its shipments to the family owned business when Phil and Kay Smith refused to raise their prices.

Leegin said that by maintaining price consistency among its retailers, stores can offer improved customer service. The extra service, said the manufacturer, enables smaller stores to compete against rival brands sold by bigger cut-rate competitors.

If the old standard is abandoned, what about the argument that every American will pay far more, asked Justice Stephen Breyer.

Representing the Bush administration, Deputy Solicitor General Thomas Hungar said that there is a consensus among economists that such agreements are not necessarily anti-competitive.

Consumers "want other things besides cheap," said Justice Antonin Scalia. Some consumers prefer more service at a higher price, said Scalia, and the fact that such price-floor agreements might raise prices "does not prove anything."

The Smiths successfully sued Leegin, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the jury's finding that Leegin and its retailers agreed to fix retail pric-es on the manufacturer's Bright-on brand.

If Leegin can get the 1911 Supreme Court ruling overturned, it would be much more difficult for the Smiths to prevail because they would have to show that the Leegin agreement is anti-competitive.

President Bush, making a brief statement to reporters in the Rose Garden, struck an optimistic tone that echoed how aides said Snow was feeling. Mr. Bush said he looked forward to the day when Snow returns to the White House.

"His attitide is one that he is not going to let this whip him," Mr. Bush said. "My attitude is that we need to pray for him."

Snow underwent surgery Monday to remove a small growth in his lower abdomen, a procedure he said last Friday was being done "out of an aggressive sense of caution" because he had colon cancer two years ago.

Doctors determined that the growth was cancerous, and found during the surgery, which was exploratory, that his cancer had metastasized, or spread, to his liver, Perino said.

On the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressman Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said, "I've known Tony, we've all known Tony, for a long time and my belief is if anybody has the stamina and the fortitude and the positive nature to deal with this challenge, he has it," Blunt, who has also battled cancer, said.

"We're wishing him well and frankly hope he is back to work soon, because we need him," Blunt said.

Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine announced Monday that he has vetoed five bills promoting the death penalty. House Bill 2750 and House Bill 2347  sought to make the murder of a judge and the murder of a witness in a criminal case, respectively, into capital crimes; Senate Bill 1116 proposed a similar measure. House Bill 2348 and its counterpart Senate Bill 1288 would have made accessories to first degree murder eligible for the death penalty. Kaine acknowledged the seriousness of the targeted offenses but said he did not believe that it was necessary to expand the death penalty "to protect human life or provide for public safety needs."

Kaine, a Democrat and a Roman Catholic, ran his 2005 campaign as an anti-death penalty candidate, but said he would not disrupt the current state laws. Monday's vetoes are expected to be overturned by the predominately Republican Virginia General Assembly during a vote on April 4. Virginia currently has the second-highest number of executions in the US after Texas.

Asked why he would want to remain as attorney general amid so many calls for his ouster, Gonzales said he‘s been asking himself lately whether it‘s appropriate for him to stay in his job.

But, he said, "at the end of the day, it‘s not about Alberto Gonzales. It‘s about this great Department of Justice that does so many wonderful things for the American people."

The House voted 329-78 to strip the attorney general of his power to indefinitely appoint federal prosecutors, approving a bill similar to one passed in the Senate. President Bush , who is standing by Gonzales, has signaled that he will not veto the legislation.

Oracle's lawsuit accusing rival SAP of stealing proprietary information is a serious escalation in the battle between the software giants that may create fear and uncertainty among customers, some analysts say.

"Clearly it's a very fierce rivalry that just keeps getting ratcheted up," says James Kobielus, principal analyst for data management at Current Analysis. "It's not surprising they'll continue to duke it out with each other through all available channels. ... Oracle has made no bones about the fact that it covets SAP's primary standing in the business application market. SAP clearly feels the threat from Oracle on that front."

Oracle Thursday accused SAP and its TomorrowNow subsidiary of engaging in "systematic, illegal access" to Oracle's computerized customer support systems. TomorrowNow provides third-party maintenance and support in large part for Oracle applications drawn from its PeopleSoft, Siebel and JD Edwards product families.

Oracle's lawsuit defends against TomorrowNow "looking to undercut a major revenue stream by offering half-rate support," writes Martin Schneider, an analyst at 451 Group. But Oracle has done the same in the past, he writes in analysis issued in response to the lawsuit.

"It is interesting that Oracle has been guilty of the same kind of activity with its recent underselling of RedHat Linux support," Schneider writes. "But since the JDE and PeopleSoft products are under proprietary licenses, Oracle has much more legal recourse than RedHat. But we wonder how much (Oracle) IP SAP did gather that is really hard to come by, since most of the later PeopleSoft bug fixes and patches were built using the open source Eclipse toolkit."

Oracle's lawsuit claims that SAP illegally accessed and downloaded more than 10,000 pieces of Oracle IP off its customer portal, Schneider notes.

A Jackson law firm has sued millionaire trial attorney Richard Scruggs for allegedly withholding money it claims it was owed for working on Hurricane Katrina insurance-related litigation.

The lawsuit was filed March 15 in Lafayette County Circuit Court by Grady F. Tollison Jr. on behalf of the Jones, Funderburg, Sessums, Peterson & Lee law firm in Jackson. No court date has been set for the lawsuit.

Tollison has requested a jury trial. Tollison was not in his office Tuesday and was not immediately available for comment.

Scruggs is one of the nation's wealthiest trial attorneys. In the late 1990s, his Mississippi-based firm earned nearly $1 billion in fees for his part in reaching a landmark $250 billion settlement with tobacco companies. He used that windfall to finance lawsuits against insurance companies for denying thousands of policyholders' claims after Katrina destroyed their homes.

Scruggs created a legal team, called the Scruggs Katrina Group, to represent the policyholders. SKG's work led to a settlement with State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. that will earn the attorneys about $26 million. Those legal fees are at the crux of the lawsuit.

Zach Scruggs of Oxford, Scruggs' son and law partner, said Tuesday that he could not immediately comment on the lawsuit. Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are other members of the SKG team.

The lawsuit, which gives only one side of the legal argument, alleges that senior partner John G. Jones and other members of the Jackson law firm deposed witnesses, handled briefs, filed motions and other tasks for Scruggs' group.

Specifically, the lawsuit mentions Jones and his law firm's work on a July 2006 lawsuit, filed by SKG on behalf of Pascagoula police officer Paul Leonard against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. over denial of Leonard's claim.

Jones participated in the questioning of witnesses in that lawsuit. The lawsuit notes that the agreement with SKG did not specify a percentage of fees that each participating law firm would receive.

The exception was a Ridgeland law firm that had agreed to finance part of the SKG joint venture.

The lawsuit alleges Scruggs and other conspired to "freeze out" the Jones firm and offered it a "ridiculously low figure" for its "substantial" work. Jones claimed his firm was offered a $1 million payment and was told it would get nothing from the legal fees to be paid by State Farm, according to the lawsuit.

Jones contends Scruggs declined to negotiate or enter into arbitration to settle the fees issue and kept Jones' law firm out of any other lawsuits filed by SKG. The Jones firm claims it is entitled to 20 percent of all past attorney fees collected by SKG and 20 percent of all future attorney fees SKG collects. The lawsuit also asks for unspecified punitive damages.