In Oregon alone, at least 28 animals have died after eating the food - including five dogs in Springfield and one in Pleasant Hill, and two cats each in Eugene and Springfield and one in Pleasant Hill. Ill animals also have been listed in Veneta and Cottage Grove, according to the latest numbers from the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association.

"This is really tragic. It sounds like it is going to be really huge," said Michele Smith, an attorney with the Eugene firm of Johnson Clifton Larson & Schaller.

People with potential legal claims react in different ways, she said. Some wait until most of the facts are known. Others want to rush right to a lawyer, Smith said.

advertisement Pet owners such as Allan Hall of Eugene are not waiting. Hall said he has been angry since his 15-year-old dachshund, Tabbitha, died March 13, within days of eating food that was subject to the recall.

"This was my best friend for 15 years. I was with her since she was six weeks old," Hall said Thursday.

Hall compiled his veterinary records, got help from a retailer to get a copy of his receipt for the food and contacted the Food and Drug Administration to register his case. Then he got on the Internet to contact a law firm in Wisconsin that has filed a class action lawsuit.

"I am interested in joining a class action lawsuit," Hall said. "The only thing that will make me feel better is that this company will not make pet food again. That's what I want."

Smith said pet owners should save unused food portions, labels from containers, store receipts, veterinary reports and bills, along with photographs of their pet or other evidence that might bolster their legal claims.

The Menu Foods litigation is only beginning, she said. Company and government officials have not yet confirmed the source of the problem, much less who may be responsible and what can be done about it. The company has said publicly that it will cover the veterinary bills of affected animals.

Nevertheless, hundreds of pet owners already have contacted the Seattle law firm of Myers and Company, one of the firms seeking class action status for a lawsuit against Menu Foods, said Tom Baisch, an associate attorney with the firm.

Affected pet owners need not hurry to sue, he says. The first hurdle will be convincing a judge that the cases are enough in common to be handled as a class. If so, the cases will be consolidated, with a panel of attorneys working to resolve it for all affected pet owners.

If a judge accepts the suit as a class action, affected pet owners are presumed to be a part of the class, he said. However, they need to file their information with the Food and Drug Administration or contact lawyers who have filed the lawsuits so they can receive information about the case, he said.

Pet owners can contact the FDA consumer complaint coordinator at (425) 483-4949 to report cases of illness or death due to the recalled food. Owners must report the specific product name, lot numbers of the product, and provide a veterinarian's report and diagnosis.

Owners need not pay legal fees to be part of the case. When the case settles, they can choose whether to accept the deal or withdraw and pursue their own lawsuit, Baisch said.

"It could take months. It could take years," Baisch said.

The list of recalled food: www.menufoods.com/recall

The United States has filed a suit in federal court in Raleigh seeking to bar Raymond A. Renfrow of Elm City, N.C., from preparing federal income tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, alleges that Renfrow prepared tax returns for customers that contained fictitious or inflated deductions. The suit alleges that Renfrow has prepared an estimated 993 returns since 2001 that have caused an estimated loss to the U.S. Treasury of more than $2.9 million.

The complaint further alleges that Renfrow prepared false and fraudulent federal trust returns based on a tax fraud scheme promoted by Trust Education Services and National Trust Services. Information on other court cases related to those schemes is available at: http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv04081.htm and www.usdoj.gov/tax/prtax/txdv03332.htm. Misuse of trusts is included in the IRS's 2007 list of the Dirty Dozen tax scams. http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=167983,00.html

The lawsuit asks the court to order Renfrow to provide a list to the Justice Department of his customers' names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and Social Security numbers. Since 2001 the Justice Department has obtained more than 230 injunctions to stop the promotion of tax fraud schemes and the preparation of fraudulent returns.

The institute's "Jackpot Justice" study is the first to calculate both the U.S. legal system's direct and indirect costs, study author Lawrence McQuillan says.

Direct costs refer to damage awards, lawyer fees and defense costs -- as well as administrative costs from lawsuits arising after someone breaks a contract or violates a trust resulting in injury to another's person's body, property, reputation, legal rights and the like.

Indirect costs refer to the legal system's impact on research and development spending, the cost of so-called defensive medicine and the related rise in healthcare spending and reduced healthcare access, McQuillan says.

Lost sales of new products "from less innovation" amounts $367.1 billion, the study concluded.

The Maryland Senate passed a bill Wednesday to ignore the US Electoral College in presidential elections, instead awarding the state's 10 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Currently, the state's 10 votes go to the candidate who won the popular vote in Maryland.

The Senate approved SB 634 by a 29-to-17 vote, and it now goes to the state House. The plan would only go into action if enough states representing a majority of the nation's 538 electoral votes adopt it, making it unlikely that it would be in effect by next year's presidential election.

Other states are also considering the plan as a way to avoid a situation where a candidate wins the popular vote but loses the election, as happened with Democrat Al Gore in 2000.

The city of Chula Vista has issued a response to a lawsuit filed by a police officer who wants to compete in beauty pageants.

Deana Mory is currently representing California in the Ms. United States beauty pageant. But she is also a police officer who patrols the streets of Chula Vista.

She told NBC police administrators said if she competes she could be reprimanded or fired because prize money and gifts from the pageants violate city police.

Mory said she would refuse the money if she won the national title, but the city did not accept her compromise.

As a result, Mory and the Police Officers Association filed a lawsuit against The Chula Vista Police Department.

Wednesday night, Liz Pursell from the city of Chula Vista released a statement saying, "There is no merit to the allegations. Ms. Mory did participate in the pageant. The city is in the process of responding to the second lawsuit. We anticipate filing a motion seeking a judgment in favor of the city."

The beauty pageant is in July, and Mory said she plans on taking part.

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan threw out a lawsuit brought on behalf of nine former prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan . He said Rumsfeld cannot be held personally responsible for actions taken in connection with his government job.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First had argued that Rumsfeld and top military officials disregarded warnings about the abuse and authorized the use of illegal interrogation tactics that violated the constitutional and human rights of prisoners.

"This is a lamentable case," Hogan began his 58-page opinion Tuesday.

"Despite the horrifying torture allegations," Hogan said, he could find no case law supporting the lawsuit, which he previously had described as unprecedented.

Allowing the case to go forward, Hogan said in December, might subject government officials to all sorts of political lawsuits. Even Osama bin Laden could sue, Hogan said, claiming two American presidents threatened to have him murdered.

Had the Rumsfeld lawsuit been allowed to go forward, attorneys for the ACLU might have been able to force the Pentagon to disclose what officials knew about abuses such as those at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and what was done to stop it.

The Justice Department had no immediate comment.

Karpinski, whose Army Reserve unit was in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison, was demoted and is the highest-ranking officer punished in the scandal. Sanchez, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq, retired from the Army and said his career was a casualty of the prison scandal.