A federal appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit challenging the San Francisco Sheriff's Department's policy of forbidding male guards to work in the women's jail.

The San Francisco Chronicle says a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the policy constituted sex discrimination which the city had failed to demonstrate was absolutely necessary.

The 9th Circuit decision overruled the finding of a federal judge who dismissed the lawsuit after finding that excluding male guards made sense as a way to protect the safety and privacy of female inmates.

The policy was adopted in 2006. The Chronicle says the 35 guards who sued the next year included women who alleged it had increased their work loads and men who said it cost them overtime and possible promotions.

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled against Birmingham-based HealthSouth Corp. on Friday in a legal dispute linked to the accounting fraud that rocked the rehabilitation company more than a decade ago.

The justices rejected an appeal filed by HealthSouth in a legal fight involving its one-time auditing company, Ernst & Young.

Shareholders filed a complaint on behalf of HealthSouth blaming Ernst & Young for failing to detect the $2.6 billion accounting scam that occurred under former CEO Richard Scrushy, who was acquitted of criminal charges in 2005. A civil court later held him responsible for the swindle.

An arbitration panel ruled against HealthSouth in a complaint aimed at making Ernst & Young share responsibility for the fraud, and HealthSouth appealed to Jefferson County Circuit Court. That court sided with the auditor, and HealthSouth appealed again.

The Supreme Court, in a decision written by Justice James Main, upheld the ruling against HealthSouth. The justices said there was no evidence the arbitration decision against HealthSouth was fundamentally unfair or that the panel engaged in any misconduct.

Evidence showed HealthSouth inflated its earnings by some $2.6 billion from the late 1990s through the early 2000s, when the scheme was uncovered. Fifteen HealthSouth employees pleaded guilty and jurors convicted one other.

Scrushy blamed everything on underlings but later served time in federal prison after being convicted in a bribery scheme involving former Gov. Don Siegelman, who remains in prison in Oakdale, La.

Scrushy, who maintains his innocence to all charges, now lives in Texas and sometimes lectures about corporate fraud.

The state Supreme Court has ruled that state dashboard cameras can't be withheld from public disclosure unless they relate to pending litigation.

Five of the high court's members said Thursday that the Seattle Police Department wrongly used a state statute as a blanket exemption to the state's public records act when it denied providing dashboard camera videos to a reporter with KOMO-TV. Their ruling overturns a 2012 King County Superior Court judge's ruling that said the department could withhold the videos for three years.

The majority awarded KOMO attorney fees and sent the case back to the lower court.

Four justices argued that the statute was clear that that the recordings should not be released to the public until completion of any criminal or civil litigation.

The Supreme Court says a group of homeowners in North Carolina can't sue a company that contaminated their drinking water because a state deadline has lapsed.

The justices ruled 7-2 on Monday that state law strictly bars any lawsuit brought more than 10 years after the contamination — even if residents did not realize their water was polluted until years later.

The high court reversed a lower court ruling that said federal environmental laws should allow the lawsuit against electronics manufacturer CTS Corp. to proceed.

The decision is a setback for the families of thousands of former North Carolina-based Marines suing the federal government in a similar case for exposing them to contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune. The government is relying on the same state law to avoid liability.

India's Supreme Court Wednesday rejected an appeal by an Indian tycoon accused of a multibillion dollar fraud to be released from jail and allowed house arrest.

Subrata Roy, head of the Sahara India conglomerate, has been jailed since March 4 on charges that his company failed to return billions of dollars to investors. Bail was earlier set at $1.68 billion and the company has struggled to raise the funds.

India's securities regulator has accused Sahara India of raising nearly 200 billion rupees ($3.2 billion) through bonds that were later found to be illegal.

Sahara is well known throughout India because it sponsors the Indian cricket team. The company also sponsors the Indian hockey team and owns a stake in Formula One racing team, Force India.

The company has interests in microfinance, media and entertainment, tourism, health care and real estate, including New York's landmark Plaza Hotel and London's Grosvenor House.

The court Wednesday allowed the Sahara group to sell properties in nine Indian cities after the company said it had not succeeded in raising the $1.68 billion needed to obtain bail for Roy.

The court had earlier rejected a proposal by the company to pay bail in instalments.

The state attorney general's office has asked a federal judge in Seattle to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Washington's authority to tax marijuana sales.

In the motion Friday to U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman, the state says Martin Nickerson failed to appeal the tax assessments in a timely manner and that the issue should be resolved in state court.

The case arises from the state's attempt to collect sales taxes from a medical marijuana dispensary in Bellingham. Attorney Douglas Hiatt, who represents Nickerson, said it could throw a wrench in Washington's plans for collecting taxes on recreational marijuana, too.

The lawsuit challenges Washington state's authority to tax marijuana as long as marijuana remains illegal under federal law.