A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a federal judge's decision to block the hourly employees from filing a class action lawsuit.

The judge had ruled that the court inquiries into each employee's individual situation would "swamp" any of the group's common issues.

The employees contend that FedEx has engaged in a "pervasive and long-standing policy" of failing to pay hourly employees for all time worked.

FedEx hourly employees are required to manually enter their scheduled start, end and break times into a hand-held tracker. But employees also use time cards as a backup tracking method.

The group claims they frequently worked during unpaid breaks. They also say they weren't paid for the gap periods between punching in or out on a time clock and when they actually started or finished work.

For example, if an employee punched in at 7:45 a.m. but entered a start time of 8 a.m. into the tracker, there would be a 15-minute gap for which the employee would not be paid.

A spokesman for FedEx wasn't immediately able to comment on the ruling Monday.

The high court agreed Tuesday to review Merck's challenge to a federal appeals court's reinstatement of a class-action securities lawsuit.

Investors had charged Merck with providing misleading information or omitting information about the risks of Vioxx. A U.S. District judge dismissed the November 2003 lawsuit, ruling that all the plaintiffs' claims were time-barred under the statute of limitation.

But the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to allow the lawsuits and Merck appealed to the Supreme Court.

Vioxx was pulled from the market Sept. 30, 2004, because it doubled risks of heart attack, stroke and death. That day alone, stockholders lost a collective $28 billion.

Consumers have the right to sue as a group over advertising they believe misled them into buying products, a divided state Supreme Court ruled Monday in reinstating a massive suit against the tobacco industry.

The 4-3 decision rejected business arguments that, if accepted, would have virtually prohibited class-action suits for false advertising by requiring proof that every plaintiff - millions of them, in some cases - had seen an allegedly deceptive ad and relied on it to make a purchase. The court majority said that evidence is required only for the single plaintiff or small group that represents the entire class.

"This gives the consumers rights to protect themselves from fraudulent advertising," said Mark Robinson, a lawyer for the smokers who sued tobacco companies in 1997.

The ruling could make California "the class-action capital of the country," retorted William Stern, a lawyer for business organizations and a co-author of Proposition 64, a 2004 ballot measure at the heart of the case.

The suit accused the companies of waging a long advertising campaign that concealed cigarettes' addictive and harmful effects. Unlike individual suits over illnesses allegedly caused by tobacco company deception, the current suit seeks reimbursement of money spent by every Californian who bought cigarettes during the period covered by the case: June 10, 1993, to April 23, 2001.

The case was filed under California's unfair-competition law, a far-reaching statute that lets private citizens sue on behalf of the general public over illegal business practices, including deceptive advertising. The law was narrowed by the business-sponsored Prop. 64, which requires a plaintiff to show that he or she had actually been harmed by the business practice.

Prop. 64 did not say, however, how the new requirement would affect class actions, in which an individual or a small group sues on behalf of consumers in the same circumstances. The crucial question Monday was whether every member of the class must show harm from the challenged business practice, a virtual impossibility in most cases.

Insurers who paid medical expenses for claimants in the settlement — one of the largest ever in the pharmaceutical industry — have been trying to recoup their expenses from the claimants. The insurers placed liens against any amounts recovered by thousands of former Vioxx users or their survivors, and unsuccessfully tried to make plaintiff lawyers disclose identities of all Vioxx claimants.

Under an agreement approved Thursday by U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon in New Orleans, the amount the more than 100 private insurers participating in the deal can recover from liens will be reduced by at least half. There's also a sliding scale that limits the total an insurer can recover from each claimant, attorney Christopher Seeger, who negotiated the agreement, told The Associated Press in an interview.

Insurers could get at most 15 percent of a $100,000 settlement, or $15,000, and 10 percent of any settlements worth more than $250,000. It's the first such settlement with insurers in a mass litigation case, Seeger said.

"It's a great deal for the (insurance) carriers. It's a very good deal for the claimants," said Seeger, co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in the consolidated federal Vioxx cases.

Drugmaker Merck & Co., based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., pulled Vioxx off the market in September 2004 amid mounting evidence it greatly increased the risk of heart attack, stroke and death. That triggered tens of thousands of lawsuits from Vioxx users who claimed they were harmed.

The settlement amount was listed at $7.2 billion, a sum that has been accruing interest since 2002 and includes $688 million plus interest in attorneys fees.

The deal, approved late Monday by U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon, and the attorneys fees are the largest in history in a U.S. securities fraud case.

"We're pleased that the court recognizes the tremendous amount of work, skill and determination required to overcome significant obstacles in this complicated case," said Patrick Coughlin, attorney for the regents of the University of California, the lead plaintiffs.

About 1.5 million individuals and entities will be eligible to share in the distribution under the settlement plan. The attorneys fees will go to San Diego-based Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP, the law firm representing the university.

Besides the University of California, other plaintiffs who will share in the proceeds include pension plans from New York City and Hawaii, various investment firms and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

The distribution plan was part of a $40 billion lawsuit filed by shareholders and investors, who claim Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup and others participated in the accounting fraud that led to Enron's downfall.

Calculating shares of the $7.2 billion will be determined by a formula that factors in such things as the stock's purchase price and the type of stock bought.

At its height, Enron's common stock sold for as much as $90 per share, before plummeting to as low as $1 right before the company declared bankruptcy.

Under the plan, investors will get an average of $6.79 per share of common stock and an average of $168.50 per share of preferred stock.

To be eligible for the settlement, investors and shareholders needed to have bought Enron or Enron-related securities between Sept. 9, 1997 and Dec. 2, 2001.

Attorneys for several investors objected to the distribution plan and the attorneys fees.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who had previously filed court briefs in support of plaintiffs' claims, also objected to the attorneys fees.

"General Abbott continues to object to giving millions of dollars to plaintiff lawyers when that money should go to the hardworking men and women who suffered from Enron's demise," said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Abbott's office.

"This court reiterates that there is no way to allocate these proceeds that would not in some way favor or disfavor to some degree some of the class members," Harmon wrote in her order. "On the whole, the court finds that ... the chosen method is fair, adequate and reasonable."

Harmon also said the attorneys fees, which are 9.5 percent of the settlement, are "fair and reasonable."

Several financial institutions have not settled and remain as defendants in the Enron case, including Merrill Lynch & Co., Credit Suisse First Boston and Barclays Bank PLC. Several former Enron officers also remain as defendants, including former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling, now serving a criminal sentence of more than 24 years in federal prison in Minnesota.

But the lawsuit has been on hold since an appeals court last year ruled shareholders and investors could not sue as a class, which would have allowed them to sue as a group and have more leverage to settle the case out of court.

The U.S. Supreme Court in January refused to hear arguments in the lawsuit. The high court in a similar case gave a measure of protection from securities lawsuits to suppliers, banks, accountants and law firms that do business with corporations engaging in securities fraud.

Because of that ruling, Harmon is still deciding whether the financial institutions that remain as defendants will be dismissed from the lawsuit.

Enron, once the nation's seventh-largest company, entered bankruptcy proceedings in December 2001 after years of accounting tricks could no longer hide billions in debt or make failing ventures appear profitable.

The collapse wiped out thousands of jobs, more than $60 billion in market value and more than $2 billion in pension plans.

Enron founder Kenneth Lay and Skilling were convicted in 2006 for their roles in the company's collapse. Lay's convictions for conspiracy, fraud and other charges were wiped out after he died of heart disease in 2006.