The federal government has accused a national nonprofit group that helps the disabled, homeless and those recovering from addictions of firing a New Orleans employee because she was obese. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Thursday that its federal lawsuit against Resources for Human Development alleges that Lisa Harrison had a federally protected disability.

A Texas appeals court has sided with the state office of the attorney general, ruling that a same-sex couple cannot get divorced in Texas. The panel said the trial court erred in holding that Texas law violates the Equal Protection Clause, and found that state law “recognizes that only opposite-sex couples are naturally capable of producing children,” and gives them the option of legal formalization “with the legitimate legislative goal of encouraging such formalization and thereby promoting the well being of children.”

If Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker is looking for a little more ammunition to shoot down California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage, one of his Massachusetts colleagues has given him some. U.S

Attorney fee awards under a major federal fee-shifting statute are paid to the client, not to the attorney, and can be offset to pay a client’s debt to the federal government, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday

A San Francisco ordinance prohibiting tobacco sales in drugstores could violate the equal protection clauses of the state and federal constitutions, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday. The unanimous decision by the 1st District Court of Appeal reverses a demurrer in the city’s favor and lets Walgreen Co. go ahead with a suit challenging the controversial ordinance