A federal judge in Maine says 40 residents with cerebral palsy, epilepsy and other conditions can join a lawsuit seeking to force the state to provide opportunities for them to live outside nursing homes.

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock granted class-action status to a lawsuit filed by three men with cerebral palsy who want to live on their own but retain services provided by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

In the lawsuit filed in December 2009, the three argued the state violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Nursing Home Reform Act because it failed to make it possible for them to live outside nursing homes.

The Bangor Daily News says state officials couldn't be reached Wednesday because of the storm.

Lawyers for hundreds of workers from India who claim they were subjected to abusive conditions at Gulf Coast shipyards after Hurricane Katrina are asking a federal judge to certify their lawsuit as a class action against the company that hired them.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a class-action suit in 2008 on behalf of seven individuals who worked for Signal International, an oil rig construction and repair company.

The plaintiffs' lawyers on Tuesday asked U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey to certify the case as a class action for roughly 500 workers who claim they were lured here after the 2005 storm with the false promise of green cards and then forced to live in crowded, unsanitary conditions.

Toshiba Corp.'s U.S. business was hit with a $100 million lawsuit Monday for alleged "systemic, companywide" discrimination against female staff over pay and promotions, a law firm representing one of the plaintiffs said.

The class action employment lawsuit, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, claims that Toshiba America Nuclear Energy Corp. and its parent, Toshiba America Inc., engage in systemic gender discrimination against their female employees.

The lawsuit was brought by Elaine Cyphers, a human resources manager at Toshiba America Nuclear Energy who joined the company in June 2008. The suit was filed on behalf of a class of female Toshiba employees in the U.S., according to the firm.

It alleged that the defendants pay female employees less than their male counterparts, deny them promotions to better and higher-paying positions, limit their employment opportunities to lower and less-desirable job classifications, and expose them to different treatment as employees.

Microsoft is facing a  class action lawsuit in Italy over how difficult it is making getting a refund for copies of Windows that are bundled with new PCs. Filed in Milan by the Associazione per i Diritti degli Utenti e Consumatori (ADUC), the lawsuit (statement) aims to have Microsoft make changes to its end user license agreement (EULA) that assumes users agree to it by using the software when first turning on their PCs.

Those who opt to replace the software with another OS such as Linux are forced to try and get a refund from the hardware vendor rather than Microsoft itself, a process that's proven hard before.

The group is a consumer watchdog and believes Microsoft is being directly anti-competitive. It's "using its strong position in the market to promote their products in an unlawful manner, to the detriment of users and competition," it said.

Class action security lawsuits are on the rise, with a large spike in federal litigation alleging disclosure violations in merger and acquisition transactions, according to a study by the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse and Cornerstone Research.

The study revealed the number of lawsuits related to M&A transactions increased 471 percent.

The study also found that of all class action security suits in 2010, 15.4 percent of Standard & Poor's 500 healthcare companies were named defendants in a class action.

The Supreme Court won't stop the class-action certification of a lawsuit against Pella Corp. over a purported defect in one of its windows.

The high court on Tuesday refused to hear an appeal from the window-maker.

The lower courts have certified a class-action lawsuit against Pella. The lawsuit alleges that Pella's aluminum clad wood "Proline" casement windows have a design defect that allows water to seep behind the aluminum cladding. They claim that allows the wood to rot at an accelerated rate, and that Pella committed consumer fraud by not declaring publicly the role that the purported design flaw had in the rot.

But Pella fought the class-action certification, saying consumer fraud claims are inappropriate for class treatment.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Black has approved a previously disclosed $179 million settlement and entered a final judgment in a dispute between AK Steel and retirees at its Butler, Pa., steel plant.

The AK Steel retirees had filed a class-action lawsuit in June 2009 to stop the company from making changes to their health insurance benefits. It had started making retirees pay a portion of their premiums in January 2010.

West Chester-based AK Steel is the largest Dayton-area company, with more than $4 billion in revenue.

Under the terms of the settlement, AK Steel will continue to pay for the benefits through 2014 and also pay $91 million to two trusts to cover future benefits for hourly and salaries retirees.

In return, the company has been relieved of liability for any benefits after 2014, and the lawsuit was dismissed.