Los Angeles federal district court judge Mariana Pfaelzer held that plaintiffs can amend their complaint, but they must restrict their claims to just the $31 billion of securities purchased by the named plaintiffs. (That's still a lot of securities!) The judge rejected BofA's attempt to throw out the whole case on statute of limitations grounds.

San Diego real estate developer and philanthropist Ernest Rady lost more than millions in the Great Recession: He says he lost his family. But what Rady hasn't lost--at least so far--is $272 million that his nieces and nephews claimed in a nasty legal fight over an erstwhile stock buyout.

It still may be too soon to tell whether there will be a tsunami of litigation over credit-default swap agreements gone bad, as some have predicted. But it's probably a safe bet that litigation initiated by a hedge fund against Citigroup and Wachovia won't do much to roil the waters. On Monday, Manhattan federal district court judge Laura Swain dismissed seven out of eight causes of actions brought by VCG Special Opportunities Master Fund against Wachovia.

Represented by Cravath and Greenberg Traurig, the retailer Big Lots alleges that Retail Intelligence Group induced at least 72 store managers to divulge trade secrets and confidential information, causing its stock to fall.