A $188 million class-action verdict against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Sam's Club over payment to employees for rest breaks and off-the-clock work was upheld Friday by a Pennsylvania appeals court.

A three-judge Superior Court panel said there was sufficient evidence at trial to conclude there had been a breach of contract, unjust enrichment and violations of state labor laws.

The judges also ruled in a 211-page opinion that the presiding Philadelphia judge erred in determining some of the plaintiffs' legal fees, and sent that part of the case back for recalculation.

The 2006 trial, which lasted 32 days, resulted in a finding that Wal-Mart did not pay employees for all the work they performed and did not let them take their paid, mandatory rest breaks, the judges wrote. The court awarded $46 million in attorneys' fees.

Wal-Mart spokesman Greg Rossiter said the retail giant believes the court decision was wrong in a number of respects and looks forward to additional review in the courts.

Southwest Virginia landowners have reached a $3.4 million tentative settlement in a class-action lawsuit over coalbed methane rights.

The Bristol Herald Courier reports Wednesday's settlement would be split among 1,850 landowners.

The federal lawsuit alleged that Chesapeake Energy Corp. subsidiary Chesapeake Appalachia underpaid royalties to landowners for decades.

The settlement will be made final at a hearing Oct. 4.

Other similar class-action lawsuits are pending in federal court in southwest Virginia involving CNX Gas Co. and EQT Production Co.

William Chandler III never realized his young man's dream of becoming a university professor, yet he has managed to pass on plenty of lessons to students of American law and business.

Chandler, 60, is retiring this week as head of Delaware's Court of Chancery, which rules over corporate law in a state that is the legal home to more than half of all publicly traded U.S. companies, including about two-thirds of the Fortune 500.

Chandler's decision to join a Silicon Valley-based law firm, where he will focus on advising corporate clients and working behind the scenes on litigation strategy, comes after 26 years on the bench, including eight years as a vice chancellor on the five-member court and 14 as chancellor.

But Chandler, who also served as a Superior Court judge before being appointed a vice chancellor, never envisioned himself wearing a black robe.

After obtaining his law degree from the University of South Carolina and clerking for a federal judge in Wilmington, Chandler went to Yale University law school with his eye on a master's degree and a dream of becoming a professor.

A federal judge expects the first lawsuit to go to trial in a massive class action against Toyota Motor Corp. over a sudden acceleration problem that led the company to recall 14 million cars will involve a crash that killed two people in Utah.

U.S. District Judge James Selna told attorneys Friday that the case of Paul Van Alfen and Charlene Jones Lloyd -- whose Toyota Camry slammed into a wall in Wendover, Utah, in 2010 -- will go to trial in early 2013.

The case will be the first of several bellwether lawsuits, intended to determine how the rest of the litigation will proceed.

Toyota says it welcomes the first suit because it will focus on what it calls the alleged technical defects at the heart of the cases.

Two ex-judges and an attorney from Mississippi must return to federal prison for their convictions in a loan scheme.

A federal appeals court had vacated their bribery convictions but upheld the guilty verdicts on corruption charges. So they needed to be resentenced.

U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate denied requests by Paul Minor and former Harrison County judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield to be re-sentenced to time they have already served.

Wingate on Monday sentenced Minor to eight years, Teel to four and Whitfield about six — all less than previous.

Prosecutors said Minor would guarantee loans for the judges, then used cash and third parties to pay off the debts. Judges then ruled in his favor in civil cases. He has long said he is innocent and was making loans to help friends.

Ford Motor Co. must pay nearly $2 billion in damages to thousands of dealerships in a 2002 class-action lawsuit that said the automaker violated dealer agreements, an Ohio judge ruled Friday.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Peter Corrigan in Cleveland issued the ruling based on a Feb. 11 jury determination that the company overcharged dealers for commercial trucks over an 11-year period.

The $2 billion award covers more than 3,000 dealerships and about 474,000 trucks. It includes a judgment of about $781 million and about $1.2 billion in interest.

"In awarding the dealers the amount of money they overpaid for trucks, the jury verdict places ... the dealers in the financial position contemplated by the terms of the contract," said James Lowe, a Cleveland attorney for Westgate Ford Truck Sales Inc., a dealership in Youngstown that represents the class.

Ford's annual report, filed on Feb. 28, says the class action included all dealers who purchased a 600?series or higher truck from Ford from 1987 to 1997. It says the lawsuit accused the automaker of failing to reveal that price concessions were given to some dealers.