A Morgantown woman has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $140,000 from the law firm where she worked.

Forty-year-old Lisa Buttermore pleaded to three counts Wednesday in Monongalia County Circuit Court.

Each embezzlement charge carries a possible sentence of one to 10 years.

Assistant Prosecutor Stephen Fitz says he'll recommend five years of probation instead.

The Dominion Post reports that Buttermore also must make monthly restitution payments and forfeit money in her retirement account.

Buttermore didn't tell the court why she stole the money from Gianola, Barnum, Wigal & London between 2008 and 2010. She declined comment after the proceeding.

The Indiana Supreme Court will decide whether southern Indiana officials should be held liable for a dog that bit a 6-year-old Evansville boy.

The court heard oral arguments in the case Wednesday.

Misty Davis sued the city of Evansville on behalf of her son, Shawn. Her suit argues that animal control officials knew that the Rottweiler that attacked him was dangerous but failed to sanction its owner under the city's dangerous animal ordinance, making the attack possible

A trial judge agreed with officials' argument that they were immune, but the state Court of Appeals in August voted 2-1 to reverse that ruling.

An appeals court has thrown out a verdict that awarded $5 million to a former New York City police officer who accidentally shot himself in the knee.

Anderson Alexander had sued the city, claiming he accidentally shot himself in 2002 while leaning back in a faulty chair in Brooklyn's 73rd Precinct. He retired from the force after undergoing several surgeries.

A jury in 2008 awarded him $5 million in damages. It found the city was negligent despite testimony that nothing broke on the chair.

A Supreme Court justice declined to throw out the verdict. But last week, the Appellate Division overruled the judge, saying there was no evidence to show the city knew the chair was defective.

Alexander's lawyer, Matthew Naparty, said his client is evaluating his options.

The Supreme Court will decide whether a teacher at a church-run school is a religious or secular worker when it comes to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The high court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School of Redford, Mich.

Cheryl Perich, a teacher and commissioned minister, got sick in 2004 but tried to return to work from disability leave despite being diagnosed with narcolepsy. She taught third and fourth graders

The school said she couldn't return because they had hired a substitute for that year. They fired her after she showed up anyway and threatened to sue to get her job back.

Perich complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which sued the church.

The church wanted the case thrown out. Courts have recognized a "ministerial exception" to the ADA which prevents government involvement in the employee-employer relationship between churches and ministerial employees.

But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said Perich's job as a teacher was secular, not religious, so the exception blocking the lawsuit didn't count. The church wants that decision overturned.

The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled the Omaha Tribe can be subject to a lawsuit over payment for work on its casinos, racetrack and other facilities.

The tribe was sued in 2009 by Omaha-based building contractor StoreVisions for breach of contract. The lawsuit says the tribe has not paid for construction work.

The Omaha Tribe argued it is immune from lawsuits because the federal government has granted American Indian tribes sovereign immunity. The tribe said in court documents that a waiver of sovereign immunity signed in 2008 by the tribal chairman and vice chairman for StoreVisions isn't valid, and the case should be thrown out.

A Thurston County district judge disagreed, ruling the lawsuit can proceed. The state's highest court affirmed that ruling in an opinion issued Friday.

A court has overturned a decision granting a new trial to a convicted rapist who claimed his rights were violated when a poem written by the victim was kept out of evidence during trial in Wayne County.

The poem expressing regret about alcohol and sex was written before the woman's encounter with Dustin Wiecek in 1999.

A federal judge says the exclusion hurt Wiecek's ability to fully confront his accuser at trial about her personal life. But a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday disagreed, saying Wiecek's lawyer had much opportunity to challenge the woman's credibility.

Wiecek was accused of using GHB, known as a date-rape drug. He's already served 41 months in prison, more than the minimum sentence. He's been free on bond since fall 2009.