A nonprofit provider of mental health services paid nearly $557,000 to settle allegations of improper billing to government health programs, the state attorney general's office said yesterday.

Tri-City Mental Health Center began reviewing employee complaints about irregularities in its government claims practices in 2003, and the nonprofit's board ordered an outside audit, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

Tri-City reported the improper billing to the government in late 2004, and was never charged.

State and federal investigators found Tri-City Mental Health billed the state Medicaid program and the state Department of Mental Health for psychiatric services that were never provided or couldn't be documented.

The improper billing occurred for more than two years, starting in Sept. 2001 at a center in Malden.

At least one manager at the Malden office was fired as a result of Tri-City's internal investigation, Coakley said.

Ellen Dalton, a manager at Tri-City, said the improperly received government payments were used to fund the nonprofit's operations, not for any personal use by its nearly 500 employees.

Dalton said Tri-City set aside cash from recent years' operations, and has paid the $556,687 settlement total in full.

"The agency is ready to move forward, and no services will be disrupted," she said.

The nonprofit, which began operations in the 1960s, runs mental health centers in the neighboring communities of Malden, Medford, and Everett.

The settlement total equals the amount of money that investigators found had been improperly billed, plus interest, according to Dalton.

Under the settlement, Tri-City agreed to ensure future compliance with rules governing Medicare reimbursement.

The settlement relieves Tri-City and its board of any civil or administrative liability.

Coakley said Tri-City "has cooperated fully with the investigation."

The US District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit against former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for authorizing torture and abuse of detainees by US personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The suit asserted that Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility for detainee abuse and that his actions violated the US Constitution, federal statutes and international law. Chief Judge Thomas Hogan based the dismissal on the immunity of government officials from lawsuits and the premise that US constitutional rights do not apply overseas. While noting that the allegations of torture were "horrifying," Hogan concluded that policy considerations counsel against permitting government officials to be sued for political decisions.

The suit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights First, which had previously sued Rumsfeld and other military officials in 2005 on behalf of eight former detainees. A war crimes action is also pending against Rumsfeld in Germany, where the German Federal Prosecutor is using Germany's universal jurisdiction law to investigate similar allegations.

Kaye Steinsapir said she thought she was feeding her cat, Lila, one of the healthiest, most nutritious cat foods available.

"Lila was a healthy, vibrant cat without any medical conditions," said the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. But in recent weeks, Lila began vomiting, drinking an excessive amount of water and was eventually diagnosed with acute kidney failure, the lawsuit said.

Gregory Helmer, a Los Angeles attorney retained by Steinsapir and Lois Grady of Sacramento, California, who alleges her cat, Riley, also became ill after eating tainted cat food, filed the lawsuit "on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated."

Menu Foods recalled on March 16 several brands of dog and cat food products nationwide. Scientists at the New York State Food Laboratory last week identified the rodent poison aminopterin as the likely culprit in a scare that prompted the recall of 95 brands of "cuts and gravy" style dog and cat food by Menu Foods of Ontario, Canada.

On Tuesday, a survey by the Veterinary Information Network, which counts 30,000 veterinarians and veterinary students as members, said the number of reported kidney failure cases had already grown to more than 471. The network's founder, Paul Pion, a California veterinarian, said 104 animals have died.

The company has so far confirmed the deaths of 15 cats and one dog. Other deaths have been reported anecdotally around the United States, but Menu Foods has not confirmed them.

Leegin says that by maintaining price consistency among niche retailers it sells to, stores can offer improved customer service. That, says the manufacturer, enables smaller stores to compete against rival brands sold by bigger cut-rate competitors.

At issue is whether price floors such as Leegin's always should be treated as illegal or evaluated case by case to see if they are pro-competitive.

The Smiths say they lowered prices by up to 20 percent because several other retailers selling Leegin's Brighton brand also were lowering prices. The Smiths say they and the competing stores were threatened by Leegin with being cut off unless they raised their prices again. Alone among the threatened stores, the Smiths refused to cave in.

"When Leegin stopped shipping to us, my wife and I lost half our business," Phil Smith said in an interview. "Kay and I are back to the same size store we started with 21 years ago."

Discounters and consumer groups say consumers will suffer if the Smiths lose.

"In the Internet age, this is a dagger at the heart of the most consumer-friendly environment we've seen in generations," said Mark Cooper, a spokesman for the Consumer Federation of America.

"Would there ever have been a Sears & Roebuck, an A&P, a Walgreens, a Kmart or a Wal-Mart" absent a ban on minimum pricing agreements? the federation asked in court papers filed in support of Kay's Kloset.

In Leegin v. Kay's Kloset, the Bush administration says it is inappropriate to automatically prohibit price floor agreements when they are not necessarily anticompetitive.

Thirty-seven state attorneys general oppose the administration.

Pfizer Inc. said Thursday that a federal appeals court has overturned a lower court decision that upheld the patent protecting its widely-prescribed hypertension drug Novasc, a move that opens the door to early generic competition.

In a statement, Pfizer said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a lower court ruling in favor of Pfizer, which found the Norvasc patent to be valid and enforceable. The appeal was brought by Apotex, which has been seeking to have the Pfizer patent nullified in order to put out a generic version of the drug.

Pfizer added that it is "reviewing the decision and is considering all its options, including seeking reconsideration."
Other generic drugmakers have also been seeking to put out generic versions of the drug, including Mylan Laboratories (MYL) . Norvasc is slated to lose patent protection later this year.

Prudential analyst Timothy Anderson said in his note Thursday that the appeals ruling could allow for the introduction of generic versions of Norvasc as soon as next week.

"We did not anticipate this ruling, but it will probably only have a muted impact on Pfizer which is already a washed-out, low valuation name," wrote Anderson.

"Earlier generic entry is a negative and could cost the company $1 billion in sales or so in 2007, but given Pfizer's size and cash generation this it not very material to the company's future outlook, in our opinion," Anderson added.