A Philadelphia law firm used nonlawyers to file untold numbers of mortgage foreclosures across the state and fraudulently collected attorney's fees that caused people to lose their homes in cases which should be legally nullified, a Pittsburgh lawyer claims in a lawsuit.

The lawsuit comes as a bankruptcy court judge, also in Pittsburgh, has given the same firm, Goldbeck, McCafferty & McKeever, until the end of business Friday to self-report to the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Agresti filed two opinions castigating the firm and the lender it represented, Countrywide Home Loans, in a foreclosure that led a Pittsburgh-area woman to file for bankruptcy in 2001.

The judge determined a Goldbeck attorney knowingly gave the court phony lender documents to bolster its foreclosure claim saying "the evidence that (the attorney) lied was considerable."

Attorneys at the Goldbeck firm have not returned calls for comment from The Associated Press on Judge Agresti's findings or the 78-page lawsuit filed last month by Patrick Loughren.

Loughren told The Associated Press he could not comment on his lawsuit, but said the document made clear his reason for filing it.

The lawsuit spells out two broad goals: defending the legal profession, and pursuing a remedy for those facing foreclosure and those who have already paid attorneys fees or lost their homes in actions filed by the Philadelphia firm.

"As one court has stated, 'It must be borne in mind that it has always been held that a professional man has standing to prevent the improper invasion of his profession,'" Loughren's lawsuit said.

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal in the biggest employment discrimination case in the nation’s history, one claiming that Wal-Mart discriminated against hundreds of thousands of women in pay and promotion. The lawsuit seeks back pay that could amount to billions of dollars.

The question before the court is not whether there was discrimination but rather whether the claims by the individual employees may be combined as a class action. The court’s decision on that issue will almost certainly affect all sorts of class- action suits, including ones asserting antitrust, securities and, products liability and other claims.

If nothing else, many pending class actions will slow or stop while litigants and courts await the decision in the case.

“We are pleased that the Supreme Court has granted review in this important case,” Wal-Mart said in a statement. “The current confusion in class-action law is harmful for everyone — employers, employees, businesses of all types and sizes and the civil justice system. These are exceedingly important issues that reach far beyond this particular case.”

Brad Seligman, the main lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a telephone interview after the court decision: “Wal-Mart has thrown up an extraordinarily broad number of issues, many of which, if the court seriously entertained, could very severely undermine many civil rights class actions. We welcome the court’s review of this limited issue, and we’re confident that the core of our action will go forward.”

Gov. Chris Christie approved a law firm with expertise in federal transit issues to help challenge a $271 million tab the federal government says the state owes for a canceled rail tunnel.

Christie's office said the governor had signed off Thursday on the selection of the Washington, D.C., firm of Patton Boggs. Rodney Slater, who served as U.S. transportation secretary under President Bill Clinton, and former Republican U.S. Sen. Trent Lott are among the partners.

"We're delighted to have been engaged by the state," said Stuart Pape, the firm's managing partner. The firm, which has an office in Newark, is assessing its strategy, Pape said.

Christie killed the $8.7 billion tunnel from New Jersey to New York City on Oct. 27, citing potential cost overruns that he said could add $2 billion to $5 billion or more to the price.

The federal government and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey each contributed $3 billion to the project, while New Jersey's share was $2.7 billion. The state and Port Authority were responsible for overruns.

Christie is fighting a bill for the return of federal money already spent on engineering and construction of the tunnel. The Nov. 24 bill from the Federal Transit Authority seeks payment within 30 days.

"It's not surprising that the same federal transit agency that had no clear way to pay for cost overruns of a project already hurt by poor planning and inequitable cost sharing is relying on bureaucratic power plays to wring even more money out of New Jerseyans," Christie said in a statement Thursday.

The contrasting views emerged in arguments over a federal court order forcing the nation's largest state prison system to cut its inmate population by some 40,000 to fix longtime problems with inadequate medical and mental health care.

The justices seemed divided along ideological lines, with conservatives appearing sympathetic to California's arguments and liberals sharply questioning its position. Conservatives have a slight majority on the court.

The court took the case under advisement after the arguments and is expected to issue a ruling by June.

The case involves two-class action lawsuits filed in federal court by inmates who challenged the health care conditions in California state prisons in 1990 and 2001. A trial began in 2008 and a three-judge federal panel ruled against the state last year.

Improving conditions in California's prisons has become a major legal, political and budget issue in view of the state's budget crisis and high unemployment.

Carter Phillips, the attorney representing the state, said the lower court had violated federal law by failing to give sufficient weight to the potential adverse on public safety of cutting the prison population.

"I guarantee you that there is going to be more crime and people are going to die on the streets of California," he said.

California's 33 adult prisons were designed to hold about 80,000 inmates but currently hold about 145,000. The state has lowered its prison population through changes in parole and sentencing policies and by transferring inmates to private prisons in other states.

The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from a Texas teenager who got in trouble for illegal downloading of music—a potential blow to students who might claim to be “innocent infringers” of copyright laws after downloading music without paying and bogging down campus networks.

Whitney Harper of Texas acknowledged she used file-sharing programs to download and share three dozen songs, claiming she didn’t know the program she used was taking songs from the internet illegally.

She also said the money she owes the recording industry should be reduced because, as a 16-year-old, she didn’t know that what she did amounted to copyright infringement.

The fate of the largest job bias lawsuit in the nation's history — a claim that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. shortchanged women in pay and promotions for many years — hinges on whether the Supreme Court will let the class-action case go to trial.

The court is likely to announce as soon as Monday whether it will hear the retail giant's appeal asserting that a single lawsuit cannot speak for more than 1.5 million employees.

Business lawyers and civil rights advocates are closely following the Wal-Mart case for its implications for class-action litigation.
"This may sound like just a technical, procedural issue, but because of the economics of it, class-action certification is often the most important issue to be decided," said Washington lawyer Roy T. Englert Jr.

If the high court permits the Wal-Mart case to proceed as a class action, it will put enormous pressure on the retailer to settle, he said. The plaintiffs have not specified the damages they would seek, but given the size of the class, it could mount into billions of dollars.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several large corporations have joined with Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, in urging the high court to hear the appeal and to restrict the use of class-action claims.

They argue that it is unfair to permit plaintiffs' lawyers to lump together many thousands of employees from stores spread across the country and to rely on statistics to prove illegal discrimination.