It Figures

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Eleven plaintiffs remain in a round of lawsuits against a microwave popcorn packaging plant in Jasper, Mo. Originally, 44 plaintiffs were part of lawsuits filed in 2006 against the makers of butter flavorings used at the Jasper Popcorn Co. plant, which has operated as Gilster Mary Lee Corp. since 1999. The flavorings contain diacetyl, which the lawsuits claim can cause a potentially fatal lung disease. Thirty-three of the lawsuits were dismissed because workers could not show that ailments they may have contracted were related to work at the plant or living near it. Those plaintiffs and the 11 that remain were not part of an earlier round of lawsuits that brought verdicts or settlements in favor of 43 workers at the plant in the 1990s. AP

$6 Million

A judge has awarded $6 million to the family of a Perry, Mo., city worker who was killed in a trench collapse in 2008. In a lawsuit brought by 29-year-old Timothy Epperson’s widow on behalf of the couple’s three sons, Circuit Judge Robert Clayton II ruled that the superintendent of the northeast Missouri town had “breached a duty of care.” Epperson was killed when he and another city worker were fixing a sewer line and the sides of the trench collapsed. Epperson died; the other worker survived. AP

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A computer hacker who pleaded guilty to helping run a global ring that stole tens of millions of payment card numbers was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the harshest sentence ever handed down for a computer crime in a U.S. court. Albert Gonzalez, a 28-year-old college dropout from Miami, had confessed to helping lead a ring that stole more than 40 million payment card numbers by breaking into retailers including TJX Cos Inc., BJ’s Wholesale Club Inc. and Barnes & Noble. Gonzalez and conspirators scattered across the globe caused some $200 million in damages to those businesses, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann. Heymann said it was not possible to quantify how much money was stolen from individuals. Under his plea agreement, Gonzalez had faced up to 25 years in prison, but asked the judge for leniency in sentencing, saying he had been addicted to computers since childhood, had abused alcohol and illegal drugs for years and suffered from symptoms of Asperger’s disorder, a form of autism. Reuters