A federal judge in Kentucky has rejected class-action status in a lawsuit accusing Countrywide Bank of charging African-American and Hispanic borrowers more for home loans than Caucasian borrowers.

U.S. District Judge John Heyburn II on Thursday ruled that Countrywide's policy put a great deal of discretion in the hands of individual loan officers, leaving too many variables at play to conclude that "even unconscious discriminatory motive or thought similarly animated thousands of mortgage rate decisions."

"However, the idea that thousands of loan officers in hundreds of separate locations around the country would exercise their discretion in a similarly discriminatory fashion as to each purported class member defies belief," Heyburn wrote. "Whether an individual loan officer or a single office did so, might be a different question."

A dozen people sued Countrywide, which is now owned by Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America, in 2008, claiming they and others were treated differently from other customers looking for a home loan between 2005 and 2007.

Boston-based attorney Gary Klein said the plaintiffs are evaluating the decision.

"The unexplained additional mortgage costs that correlate with race increase the cost of homeownership for minority borrowers across the country and are contributing to unnecessary foreclosures," Klein said.

Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton said the company was pleased with the decision.

The Ohio State Lantern is reporting that the university has paid a Columbus law firm nearly $142,000 to represent players during recent NCAA investigations into the eligibility of several Buckeyes athletes.

The student newspaper reports that the firm of Crabbe, Brown and James LLP has been paid $141,814.30 as of mid-September. Ohio State spokeswoman Shelly Hoffman confirmed the total.

Larry James, who has represented several suspended players, says the money has not come from the university's general fund but directed questions to Ohio State.

Ohio State has had players suspended from three different NCAA investigations over the past 10 months, including accepting improper benefits from a tattoo-parlor owner, taking too much in pay for summer jobs and receiving money to attend a charity event. The university is awaiting a ruling from the NCAA for the violations.

The Delaware Supreme Court is weighing whether to maintain the secrecy surrounding a letter from an actress' lawyer that led to the ouster of former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Mark Hurd following allegations of sexual harassment.

The letter was sent to Hurd last year by celebrity attorney Gloria Allred on behalf of Jodie Fisher, an actress who was hired to help with HP networking events and subsequently accused Hurd of sexual harassment.

Fisher reached a private settlement with Hurd in August 2010 for an undisclosed amount. HP announced the next day that Hurd was resigning. Instead of being fired, Hurd walked away with a severance package worth tens of millions of dollars.

A Delaware Court of Chancery judge ruled in March that the letter, which was attached to a complaint filed by an HP shareholder seeking company records regarding Hurd's departure, should be unsealed.

Hurd attorney Rolin Bissell argued Wednesday that Hurd and Fisher expected the letter to be kept confidential. He suggested that disclosure of the letter would violate their rights under California laws regarding personal privacy and the confidentiality of mediation in legal disputes. Bissell also argued that neither Delaware's law regarding shareholder access to corporate books and records, nor the presumption of openness of court records, require unsealing the letter.

A Texas appeals court on Wednesday formally exonerated a former grocery store clerk who spent nearly 25 years in prison for his wife's 1986 beating death, reaffirming a judge's decision to set him free last week based on DNA testing that linked her killing to another man.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declared Michael Morton innocent of killing his wife, Christine, and made him eligible to receive $80,000 from the state for each year of confinement, or about $2 million total.

Morton, 57, was convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence and sentenced to life in prison. He maintained over the years that his wife and their 3-year-old son were fine when he left for work at an Austin Safeway the day she was killed, and that an intruder must have attacked her.

DNA found during tests this summer on a bloody bandana discovered near the crime scene matched that of a former convict, who remains at large. Prosecutors recommended that Morton be freed immediately after that man's DNA was also linked to a hair found 17 months later at the scene of another woman's beating death in north Austin, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the Mortons' home.