Louisiana's highest court cited the U.S. Supreme Court's Dukes ruling Tuesday in decertifying a class of thousands of business and individuals in a long-running suit over alleged pollution by the owner of a wood treatment plant.

In what plaintiffs lawyers at Korein Tillery and Baron & Budd described as a watershed ruling in U.S. litigation against the agrochemical company Syngenta, a federal judge in Illinois ruled last Wednesday that Swiss parent company Syngenta AG must stand alongside its American subsidiary to face claims that the companies fouled water supplies across the midwest.

Lawyers for the chemical companies claim a Mississippi state court judge concealed his own parents' history of asbestos litigation involving the same defendants. They want the record verdict tossed and the judge off the case.

Seems like we hardly ever hear about insurance companies losing Hurricane Katrina appellate rulings. But United Fire sure did. In a terse ruling Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit rejected the insurer's appeal of a hefty jury award to a New Orleans grocer.