LEXINGTON — Two guards at Fayette County District Court are on paid leave, pending an investigation of how two women carried a pocketknife and a pair of scissors into a courtroom Tuesday.

        The items were inside the women's purses and never posed a threat, but the guards are supposed to search bags at the courthouse entrance, Fayette County Sheriff Kathy Witt said.

        Instead, sheriff's deputies and city corrections officers found the items as they booked the women into jail for non-payment of fines, Sheriff Witt said.

        On April 24, the same guards failed to catch a pocketknife and brass knuckles carried into district court in the purse of another defendant. Corrections officers also found those weapons.

        “Obviously, we need to be more thorough,” Sheriff Witt said.

        The guards, whose identities have not been released, are civilian employees, not sworn deputies.
       

Horsemen's group reinstates leader

        LOUISVILLE — The Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association has reinstated longtime executive director Marty Maline, who had been on a paid leave during an investigation of the organization.

        The board of the 6,000-member group voted 6-4 at a meeting Monday night to return Mr. Maline to the job while the investigation continues.

        “Up to this point ... there is no evidence he violated his responsibilities to the organization,” said Mr. Maline's attorney, Oliver Barber of Louisville.

        Mr. Maline was suspended April 26.

        The Kentucky HBPA is trying to find out whether Mr. Maline and two former top employees were pursuing their outside consulting business — Century Consultants Inc. — when they traveled at the association's expense. It also is looking into whether Kentucky trainers and the Kentucky HBPA should have received money that instead went to the consulting business.

        Some of the board members who voted to put Mr. Maline back on the job said they believed the investigation would exonerate him.
       

$18M suit judgment against Ford upheld

        FRANKFORT — The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an $18 million claim won by the family of a miner killed when a Ford pickup truck slipped into reverse and crushed him.

        The court said the award for damages against Ford Motor Co. was nearly three times larger than any previously upheld in Kentucky.

        The court was deeply divided over the case, splitting 4-3.

        Dissenting Justice William Cooper said it was an “outrageous” award by a “runaway jury” in Clay County. He also said the majority decision amounted to a plot to “redistribute the wealth of an out-of-state corporation with requisite deep pockets to stimulate the economy of eastern Kentucky.”

        Tommy Smith, 30, a laborer at a strip mine operated by Sand Hill Energy Inc., was killed Aug. 27, 1993. A jury concluded that he was killed when a 1977 Ford pickup he was loading apparently “migrated” out of drive and backed up, pinning Mr. Smith against a storage trailer.

        A jury awarded $3 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages. Testimony at the trial indicated that Ford knew of transmission problems on the truck model involved in the accident.

        The four members of the majority reduced the punitive award to $15 million, but said interest and other costs should be added. Chief Justice Joseph Lambert and Justices Janet Stumbo, James Keller and Donald Wintersheimer voted to uphold the award.
       

High court tosses award in PCBs case

        FRANKFORT — A $217 million award to landowners near Russellville whose property may have been contaminated by cancer-causing PCBs was thrown out Thursday by the Kentucky Supreme Court.

        But the justices said the landowners may be able to prove some loss because of the contamination and should get a new trial.

        The ruling was yet another from the pile of litigation that grew from the Rockwell International Corp. plant that produced aluminum casings from 1956 to 1989. During the die-casting process, the company used a fluid that contained polychlorinated biphenyl, a compound no longer manufactured in the United States. It's considered a hazardous substance and can cause cancer in laboratory animals.

        The Town Branch and the Mud River were among the areas contaminated. Property owners along the streams said their land became contaminated by flooding of tainted water.

        A jury awarded the 75 property owners $210 million in damages after it ruled that the company improperly discharged the chemical into streams. Another $7.5 million was awarded for damage to their property.

        The 6-1 decision of the high court said the punitive damage award was based largely on the testimony of a single real estate appraiser that should not have been allowed.

        The court, though, did not throw out the entire case as the company sought.

        “There was other evidence, however, of permanent injury to properties for which landowners may be entitled to compensation and the proper remedy is to remand to the trial court for a new trial...” Chief Justice Joseph Lambert wrote in the opinion.
       

Local-option election law upheld by court

        FRANKFORT — The 2000 law that allows local option elections in dry cities and counties for alcohol sales at larger restaurants is constitutional, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

        The decision by a 6-1 majority of the court, turned back a challenge from the Temperance League of Kentucky, which had argued it was special legislation and local option elections are not allowed on regular election days.

        The law allows petitions for local option elections, and several communities around the state held such referendums in November 2000. Voters in Georgetown, Kuttawa, Murray and Guthrie approved alcohol sales at restaurants that seat more than 100 and derive at least 70 percent of their gross receipts from the sale of food.

        Voters in other communities rejected sales.

        The Temperance League said the law was unconstitutional because it gave special status to restaurants of a certain size, as opposed to any other business that might want to sell alcohol.

        The court, in an unsigned opinion, said the General Assembly recognized a valid reason for the distinction in the legislation by declaring that larger restaurants help economic development.

        The court also rejected an argument that the Kentucky Constitution prohibits local option elections on the same day as a general election.

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