La Salle University will pay $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought on behalf of a football player who was cleared to play after sustaining a concussion at practice and later suffered a severe brain injury in a game, the attorney for the player's family said Monday.

Preston Plevretes, who was 19 at the time, was rendered severely brain damaged in 2005 because an initial concussion had not fully resolved, thereby worsening the injury from the second impact.

Plevretes, a linebacker, was covering a punt during a 56-14 loss to Duquesne in November 2005 when he sustained a hit that prompted emergency surgery at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh to relieve pressure on his brain. The injury halted the game with 2:24 left in the fourth quarter.

Following surgery, Plevretes was limited to movement of his eyes and some movement of his hands and fingers.

In its lawsuit, Plevretes' family claimed that substandard testing and medical attention by La Salle personnel were responsible for allowing Plevretes to play despite his earlier concussion.

A trial was to have begun Monday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. The settlement was announced in a statement released by attorney Shannin Specter.

NORWALK, Conn. — Xerox Corp. said Monday that a pension fund hasdropped a lawsuit over provisions in the copier company's purchase ofAffiliated Computer Services Inc. that would have made it tough for abetter buyout offer to succeed.

Xerox said the plaintiffs, Cityof St. Clair Shores Police and Fire Retirement System in Michigan,ended the litigation after the copier company agreed to removeroadblocks to a superior offer for ACS.

Xerox agreed that if theACS board receives a better offer to its $5.6 billion cash-and-stockbid for ACS, the copier company will not require ACS Chairman DarwinDeason to vote his shares in favor of Xerox.

The previousagreement would have forced Deason to give half of his votes to supportthe Xerox bid. He controls a 44 percent of the votes at ACS.

Xerox also won't force ACS to hold a shareholders meeting to vote on the Xerox bid but instead end the merger if requested.

The lawsuit was filed in October in Dallas County, Texas. A separate shareholder class action lawsuit is pending in Delaware.

Max Mizejewski (pronounced Majeski) received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1993. In 1997, Max graduated from Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College and went on to work in the public sector before entering private practice. As Manager of the Oregon Department of Transportation Environmental Unit, Max gained valuable experience negotiating, problem solving and working through confrontational issues with emotionally charged individuals. Max brings this experience to his private practice which focuses on criminal defense and family law.

Max believes in taking the time to understand each clients unique situation and specific needs. Max represents clients in criminal prosecutions, administrative hearings, dissolution of marriage, custody matters and appeals.

Education
J.D., Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR
International Law Program, Udayana University, Bali, Indonesia
B.A., University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Clerkships
United States Department of the Interior, Solicitors Office
Energy Trust of Oregon, General Counsel

Public Sector Experience
Oregon Department of Transportation, Environmental Section
City of Portland, City Nature West

Professional Memberships
Oregon State Bar
Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association
American Association for Justice
Multnomah Bar Association
Lane County Bar Association

For more information about Oregon criminal law, Oregon criminal courts, the criminal process, or to discuss your criminal charges with an experienced criminal defense attorney, please call 541-505-9872 or visit http://www.mjmlawoffice.com

A law firm active in Henderson and Las Vegas is suing the state over rules requiring licensing of non-attorney employees working on mortgage loan modifications.

Cogburn Law Offices LLC filed suit last week in Clark County District Court against the Department of Business and Industry, Division of Mortgage Lending.

Court records indicate the law firm won a temporary restraining order against the division on Friday. District Judge Valorie Vega also set a Friday hearing on Cogburn's request for a preliminary injunction, which would extend the restraining order while the issue is litigated.

The lawsuit was filed by attorney Terry Coffing of the firm Marquis & Aurbach.

Coffing said Monday that Cogburn Law Offices has not received any notification of enforcement action against it by the Mortgage Lending Division and that the restraining order should preserve the status quo until Friday's hearing.

Coffing said the State Bar of Nevada, which regulates the legal industry, has expressed concern over the rules and he hopes the bar intervenes in the case on Cogburn's side.

He said Jamie Cogburn, co-founder of the law firm, supports regulation of the loan modification industry to ensure consumers are not harmed by scam artists.

But the division's rules are too broad, including provisions attempting to regulate the practice of law, Coffing said.

A Miami lawyer has filed a class-action lawsuit against domain nameauction site SnapNames.com, after the company announced that a formeremployee was bidding against potential customers in domain nameauctions.

Attorney Santiago Cueto filed the lawsuit Monday inMiami-Dade County Circuit Court on behalf of his brother, Carlos Cueto,and others who participated in SnapNames.com's online auctions. Thelawsuit alleges that a former vice president at SnapNames.com secretlybid on tens of thousands of domain name auctions over the past fouryears, leading to falsely inflated prices.

Some of the SnapNamesauctions run into the tens of thousands of dollars, Santiago Cuetosaid. His brother, who owns about 3,000 domain names, has longsuspected shill bidding in some domain name auctions, he said.

"He's been frustrated by the process for years," Santiago Cueto said. "I think the entire industry needs to be cleaned up."

SnapNames.com,a subsidiary of Oversee.net, sent out notices last week that it haddiscovered the employee bidding on domain name auctions. SnapNames,which resells expired domain names, calls itself the largest resalemarketplace for domain names. The company runs hundreds of auctions aday, it says on its Web sites.

Following a six-day trial, a federal jury here
dismissed Blue Nile Inc.'s $60.1 million claim against The Yehuda Diamond
Company, reaffirming Yehuda Diamond's right to compare the prices of its
clarity enhanced diamonds to the untreated diamonds sold by online retailer
Blue Nile.

Yehuda Diamond, based in New York, has earned widespread industry and consumer
loyalty for its successful competition with Blue Nile and other online
jewelers, favoring consumers not only with lower prices but also with
unsurpassed expert face-to-face service and full Federal Trade
Commission-compliant disclosure.

The suit [No. C-07-2017 TSZ], brought by Blue Nile and heard last month in
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, involved Blue
Nile's efforts to prevent Yehuda Diamond from comparing the price and
appearance of its clarity enhanced diamonds to those natural untreated
diamonds sold by Blue Nile.

Yehuda Diamond has consistently contended, even before Blue Nile filed the
lawsuit against it in December 2007, that Yehuda Diamond's price comparisons
are in the best interest of consumers.  After 4-1/2 hours of deliberations,
the jury agreed, dismissing both Blue Nile's federal and state claims that
Yehuda Diamond had engaged in false or misleading advertising.

Blue Nile, which has brought multiple lawsuits against smaller competitors
over the past decade, had petitioned the jury to award it exemplary damages of
$60,161,834.64, based on alleged actual damages of $20,053,944.88.   

"This is a momentous victory for all consumers and for free-market
competition," says Dror Yehuda, president of Yehuda Diamonds.  

"In essence, the jury told Blue Nile that it can't use its massive size and
legal muscle to prevent consumers from learning about lower-priced, quality
alternatives to Blue Nile diamonds," explains Mr. Yehuda.  "In recent years,
Blue Nile has preferred to fight its competitors in the courtroom than in the
marketplace."

The jury's decision clears the path for Yehuda Diamond to continue to inform
consumers of how much they stand to save by shopping at Yehuda Diamond
authorized retailers, who offer competitive prices along with personalized,
expert, face-to-face customer service for its clarity enhanced diamonds.  By
comparison, Blue Nile untreated diamonds are frequently higher-priced and Blue
Nile bypasses the retail distribution chain altogether.

Moreover, Mr. Yehuda vowed that his company will continue to press its own
lawsuit against Blue Nile [Court Case #08-CV-9751] filed in November 2008 in
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In that ongoing case, Yehuda Diamond contends that consumers who purchased
rubies, emeralds, sapphires or jewelry containing those stones from Blue Nile
were not informed that the gemstones had been treated to enhance their
appearance.