The Texas Supreme Court issued a key ruling Friday that should boost consumer confidence in the liability insurance coverage that builders and general contractors carry.

Writing for the court, Justice Phil Johnson denied an insurance company's attempt to avoid paying a claim based on language found in most commercial general liability insurance policies. The court's decision was one of the most anticipated insurance cases in the country because Texas decisions often influence other courts across the nation, said Randy Maniloff, an insurance law expert at the White and Williams law firm in Philadelphia.

If the Texas Supreme Court had ruled in favor of the insurance company, coverage of construction mistakes in Texas would have virtually disappeared.

"Many contractors don't have the wherewithal to make good on their construction defects, so a lot of times insurance is the make-or-break issue for purposes of somebody getting compensation," Maniloff said. "This decision helps homeowners keep that insurance in place."

Most general liability policies have a clause that allows the insurance company to exclude liability claims when a contractor assumes liability "in a contract or agreement." Insurance companies often require contractors to buy additional coverage when they take on greater risk.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that bloggers and the public have the same First Amendment protections as journalists when sued for defamation: If the issue is of public concern, plaintiffs have to prove negligence to win damages.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial in a defamation lawsuit brought by an Oregon bankruptcy trustee against a Montana blogger who wrote online that the court-appointed trustee criminally mishandled a bankruptcy case.

The appeals court ruled that the trustee was not a public figure, which could have invoked an even higher standard of showing the writer acted with malice, but the issue was of public concern, so the negligence standard applied.

Gregg Leslie of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press said the ruling affirms what many have long argued: Standards set by a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc., apply to everyone, not just journalists.

The Supreme Court decided Tuesday not to allow a lawsuit to move forward in California that accuses a foreign company of committing atrocities on foreign soil. The decision could make it harder for foreign victims of foreign crime to seek justice in American courts.

The high court on Tuesday used a unanimous judgment to refuse to allow survivors and victims of Argentina's "dirty war" to sue in California the former DaimlerChrysler Corp. of Stuttgart, Germany, for alleged abuses in Argentina.

Victims who say they were kidnapped and tortured by the Argentine government in the late 1970s and relatives of those who disappeared sued in state court, alleging Mercedes-Benz was complicit in the killing, torture or kidnapping by the military of unionized auto workers.

In the 1970s and 1980s, thousands were killed, kidnapped or "disappeared," including trade unionists, left-wing political activists, journalists and intellectuals in Argentina in what has become known as the dirty war. The suit says "the kidnapping, detention and torture of these plaintiffs were carried out by state security forces acting under the direction of and with material assistance" from the Mercedes-Benz plant in Gonzalez-Catan, near Buenos Aires.

The lawsuit said that Daimler could be sued over the alleged Argentina abuses in California since its subsidiary, Mercedes-Benz USA, sold cars in that state. A federal judge threw that lawsuit out, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and said it could move forward.

A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider a decision that shutters a popular Northern California oyster farm in the Point Reyes National Seashore.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday said it wouldn't appoint a special 11-judge panel to reconsider the ruling of a three-judge panel.

The three-judge panel ruled in September that the federal government had legal authority to deny Drakes Bay Oyster Co. a new lease so the waters of the Drakes Estero could be returned to wilderness.

The small oyster farm's last remaining legal option is to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. A lawyer for Drakes Bay didn't immediately return a phone call.

O.J. Simpson's lawyers have been given until mid-April to file their written Nevada Supreme Court appeal for a new trial for the former football star in his Las Vegas armed robbery case, Simpson attorney Patricia Palm said this week.

A state high court order on Dec. 20 set a 120-day schedule for Simpson's claim that his fame stemming from his 1995 acquittal in Los Angeles in the deaths of his ex-wife and her friend meant he couldn't get a fair trial in Las Vegas, and that his trial lawyer botched his case.

The order voided a Monday deadline for what would have been expedited high court review.

Palm said she and Simpson attorneys Ozzie Fumo and Tom Pitaro were encouraged that the seven-member Supreme Court agreed to accept a 30-page appeal.

The full seven-member court has not decided whether to hear oral arguments.

Simpson, 66, already lost an initial appeal to the state Supreme Court, the only appeals court in Nevada.

He's in the fifth year of a nine-to-33 years prison sentence after a jury found him guilty of kidnapping, armed robbery and other charges for leading a group of armed men in a September 2007 confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers at a Las Vegas casino hotel.

One co-defendant who stood trial and was convicted with Simpson and four former co-defendants who pleaded guilty to felonies before trial and testified against Simpson have served prison time and gone free. Simpson won't be eligible for parole until he is 70.

Clark County District Court Judge Linda Marie Bell held five days of hearings last May before ruling Nov. 26 that Simpson's trial attorney, Yale Galanter, made errors during Simpson's 2008 trial and his initial appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Over BP's objections, a federal appeals court on Friday upheld a judge's approval of the company's multibillion-dollar settlement with lawyers for businesses and residents who claim the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico cost them money.

BP has argued that U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier and court-appointed claims administrator Patrick Juneau have misinterpreted settlement terms in ways that would force the London-based oil giant to pay for billions of dollars in inflated or bogus claims by businesses.

During a hearing in November before a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a BP lawyer argued that Barbier's December 2012 approval of the deal shouldn't stand unless the company ultimately prevails in its ongoing dispute over business payments.

But the divided panel ruled Friday that Barbier did not err by failing to determine more than a year ago whether the class of eligible claimants included individuals who haven't actually suffered any injury related to the spill.

Affirming Barbier's initial ruling in 2012, the court said in its 48-page majority opinion that it can't agree with arguments raised by BP and others who separately objected to the settlement.