Crain's New York Business reports that as a one-year New York state moratorium on medical malpractice insurance rate hikes enters its second month, reformers are hoping the state Legislature will come up with ways to lower such costs permanently.

One proposal—not yet in the form of a bill—would limit the number of suits by tightening New York’s lawyer-friendly “comparative negligence” rules to match those of most other states.

New York is one of only 13 states that allow medical malpractice lawsuits to proceed regardless of the degree to which physician negligence allegedly caused a patient’s injury.

If you're in the area, New York medical malpractice lawyer John Q. Kelly and his law firm can assist you. They specialize not only in medical malpractice, but also wrongful death and catastrophic injury. You may recognize him as the Natalee Holloway estate lawyer. Contact him today.

The justices' action Monday ends the effort by Tyco's former CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski and former CFO Mark Swartz to overturn their convictions. They are serving prison terms of 8 1/3 to 25 years for taking unauthorized pay.

The former executives said their trial was flawed because they were denied access to certain documents that would have helped persuade the jury of their innocence.

A New York State appeals court previously upheld the convictions.

A California man has pleaded guilty to opening tens of thousands of bogus online brokerage accounts and then pocketing tiny test deposits made by companies like E-Trade Financial and Charles Schwab.

Michael Largent, 23, of Plumas Lake, Calif. pleaded guilty Thursday to computer fraud charges in connection with the scam, which ran between November 2007 and May 2008.

Largent's arrest was widely covered on the Internet last May, where it was likened to so-called Salami Slicing scams depicted in movies such as Superman III and Office Spaces.

According to prosecutors, Largent wrote a script that opened more than 58,000 online accounts at instructions such as E-trade and Schwab. He used fake names, including cartoon monikers such as Hank Hill and Rusty Shackelford to open these accounts and then profited when the brokerage firms would make tiny test deposits to make sure they were linked to his account.

Typically these deposits were between $0.01 and $2 but they added up. In total he made or tried to make more than $50,000 in the scam, the Department of Justice said.

Largent is also alleged to have received more than $8,000 in micro-deposits from Google, although he was not charged with this in his May 22 indictment.

He is set to be sentenced on Aug. 13 and faces up to five years in federal prison on two computer fraud charges, a U.S. department of Justice spokeswoman said Thursday.