Taxing authorities from three states have filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against former billionaire Tim Blixseth.

The petition says the real estate baron owes $2.3 million in California, Idaho and Montana. It was filed Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Nevada.

Blixseth rose to fame and fortune after founding Montana's ultra-exclusive Yellowstone Club. He left the winter playground for Bill Gates and others before its 2008 bankruptcy. Creditors say he made off with $286 million.

Earlier allegations of unpaid taxes in Montana have been contested by Blixseth as unfounded.

He told The Associated Press Wednesday that the bankruptcy petition stemmed from Montana's "bogus" claims and pledged to fight it.

Blixseth's value was once pegged by Forbes magazine at $1.3 billion. Court documents now put the figure at roughly $230 million.

The slim margin between Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser and his challenger, JoAnne Kloppenburg, has grown slightly in favor of the incumbent as late election numbers are tallied.

But the race that reflected Wisconsin's fight over union rights is still too close to call Wednesday morning. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, conservative-leaning Prosser is leading Kloppenburg by 835 votes. Final, official results could vary and a recount appears likely.

The race highlights the divide in the state over Republican Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining law, which would strip public workers of nearly all their union rights. The issue, which could ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court, has propelled the relatively unknown Kloppenburg into prominence and heightened voter interest in the election.

A North Dakota law firm accused of trying to collect a $3,800 debt after the statute of limitations expired is now the one that owes a lot of money.

An appellate court has upheld a $311,000 jury award to a Montana man who sued the firm in 2007 over a violation of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Johnson, Rodenburg & Lauinger appealed the April 2009 summary judgment and damages awarded to Timothy McCollough of Laurel. The case was heard in July by a special panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Billings, including retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

The panel issued a decision Friday upholding the damages. They include $1,000 statutory maximum for violating the debt collection law, $60,000 in punitive damages and $250,000 for emotional distress.

"I'm just so giddy it's all over. We're finally able to take a deep breath," McCullough told The Billings Gazette on Friday. "We knew we had a good case, but it just went on forever."

McCullough said he hoped the case showed debt collectors that "people are going to know they don't have to take the garbage. They can fight back."

A call from The Associated Press seeking comment from Johnson, Rodenburg & Lauinger on Tuesday was not immediately returned.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned a massive sex discrimination lawsuit on behalf of at least 500,000 women claiming that Wal-Mart favors men over women in pay and promotions.

The justices suggested that they are troubled by lower court decisions allowing the class-action lawsuit to proceed against the world's largest retailer.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a key vote on the high court, said he is unsure "what the unlawful policy is" that Wal-Mart engaged in to deprive women of pay increases and promotions comparable to men.

Billions of dollars are at stake in the case. Class actions create pressure on businesses to settle claims and create the potential for large judgments.

Wal-Mart denies it discriminates against its female employees.

But Joseph Sellers, the lawyer for the women, said that lower courts were persuaded by statistical and other evidence put forth so far in the 10-year-old lawsuit.

Sellers said a strong corporate culture at Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters that stereotyped women as less aggressive than men translated into individual pay and promotions decisions at the more than 3,400 Wal-Mart and Sam's Clubs stores across the country.

A former Florida attorney general and congressman said Monday that Missouri should limit the fees a private law firm can collect when it handles some cases for the state attorney general.

Republican Bill McCollum came to Jefferson City to testify before a Missouri Senate panel about legislation restricting the attorney general's ability to use outside lawyers on a contingency basis. The measure would also limit outside lawyers' fees in such cases and make their expense reports a public record.

Lawyers who are hired on a contingency basis receive a portion of a judgment made in favor of their client instead of - or sometimes in addition to - their hourly rate.

McCollum supported similar legislation in Florida because of the large fees that private attorneys there collected for their work in a $205 billion settlement the tobacco industry reached with 46 states in 1998. McCollum said Florida attorneys had collected about $3.4 billion in fees from the settlement - a sum he termed "outrageous."

"The governor and the people of Florida felt that this was a big, huge rip-off," he said. "There needs to be some protections and transparencies for when an attorney general uses this outside counsel."

Private attorneys who negotiated Missouri's tobacco settlement were paid $111 million. An attempt to reduce that figure failed in the state Supreme Court in 2003.

McCollum said Missouri could have won a large award through the tobacco settlement even without agreeing to give the private attorneys a large contingency fee.

Sen. Jolie Justus, D-Kansas City, said the attorney general's office had told her staff that the state had not hired outside lawyers on a contingency basis since the tobacco settlement. The state does routinely hire outside counsel for specialized cases, such as those involving Medicaid, but it pays them an hourly rate because the state is the defendant in those cases.

The Supreme Court is questioning a massive sex discrimination lawsuit on behalf of at least 500,000 women claiming that Wal-Mart favors men over women in pay and promotions.

The justices suggested that they are troubled by lower court decisions allowing the class-action lawsuit to proceed against the world's largest retailer.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a key vote on the high court, said he is unsure "what the unlawful policy is" that Wal-Mart engaged in to deprive women of pay increases and promotions comparable to men.

Billions of dollars are at stake in the case. Class actions create pressure on businesses to settle claims and create the potential for large judgments.

Wal-Mart denies it discriminates against its female employees.