AT&T Inc will offer refunds to customers who have been charged for third-party cellphone content, including ringtones, news and other alerts, as part of a settlement of a group of class-action lawsuits, court papers available online show.

The top U.S. phone company's wireless unit AT&T Mobility agreed to refund third-party mobile content fees that it billed from Jan. 1, 2004 through May 30 this year, the papers show.

The plaintiffs had accused AT&T Mobility of charging its wireless subscribers for unauthorized third-party mobile content. Similar lawsuits are pending in state and federal courts nationwide, the papers show.

In a unanimous decision, Justice Clarence Thomas said that a money laundering case cannot be proven merely by showing that funds were concealed while being transported.

In a separate 5-4 decision, the court said that money laundering refers to profits of an illegal operation, not gross receipts. The court's interpretation is a narrow one opposed by law enforcement agencies.

Justice Antonin Scalia said the narrow definition will not unduly burden authorities, who must show only that a single instance of unlawful activity was profitable.

Providing the crucial tie-breaking vote, Justice John Paul Stevens refused to go as far as Scalia, saying Congress favored a broader interpretation of the law in cases involving the operation of organized crime syndicates.

Separately, an appeals court in New Jersey sharply reduced a verdict in another Vioxx case. The court ruled that the jury should not have been allowed to award punitive damages against Merck or to find that Merck had committed consumer fraud. Only compensatory damages of $4.5 million were permitted, the court said.

The rulings on Thursday leave lawyers for plaintiffs with just three victories, all with relatively small awards, in the nearly 20 Vioxx cases that have reached juries. Mark Lanier, a plaintiffs’ lawyer who was involved in both cases decided Thursday, criticized the decisions and promised appeals. But plaintiffs face an uphill battle.

Bruce Kuhlik, Merck’s general counsel, said the company was pleased with the rulings.

“Our faith in the judges and the fairness of the process has been well placed,” he said.

Thursday’s ruling may further discourage lawyers from pursuing lawsuits against drug makers. Already, plaintiffs’ lawyers are nervously awaiting a Supreme Court ruling in a case that will be heard this fall and could bar most lawsuits against companies for injuries said to be caused by prescription medicines approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Dustin Turner is hoping to overturn his conviction based on a confession by a fellow trainee who also went to prison for the crime. A hearing was to resume Thursday morning in Virginia Beach Circuit Court.

On Wednesday, Billy Joe Brown testified that he alone killed Jennifer Evans in 1995. He said he became a Christian in prison and realized he had to come clean.

Brown also gave a sworn statement taking full responsibility for the killing in 2003.

After a judge determines whether Brown's confession is credible, the state appeals court must decide whether it would have changed the outcome of Turner's trial.

In two employment cases, one involving race and the other, age, the court took an expansive view of workers' rights and avoided the narrow, ideology-based decisions that marked its previous term.

The justices read parts of an 1860s civil rights act and the main anti-age bias law to include the right to sue over reprisals even though neither provision expressly prohibits retaliation.

Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the court in a case involving a black employee at a Cracker Barrel restaurant who was fired, said that previous Supreme Court decisions and congressional action make clear that retaliation is covered.

The idea that a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, known as section 1981, "encompasses retaliation claims is indeed well-embedded in the law," Breyer said in the 7-2 ruling.

The court said in a 7-2 ruling that retaliation is another form of intentional, unlawful discrimination that is barred by the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It was enacted to benefit newly freed blacks.

Business groups objected that the law does not expressly prohibit retaliation and said employees should have to file suit under another law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law has a shorter deadline for filing suit and caps the amount of money that a successful plaintiff may recover.

The Bush administration was on the side of the workers.

The provision of the 1866 law, known as section 1981, does not explicitly mention retaliation.

But Justice Stephen Breyer, in his majority opinion, said that previous Supreme Court decisions and congressional action make clear that retaliation is covered.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.

The case grew out of the firing of a black associate manager at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Bradley, Ill. Hedrick Humphries claimed he was fired after he complained about race discrimination by other Cracker Barrel supervisors.