Apple lawsuit dropped

A disgruntled shareholder pressing Apple to create another class of preferred stock has dropped a lawsuit that became a dead issue after the iPhone and iPad maker changed the agenda at its annual meeting earlier this week.

Lawyers for hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital notified U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in a letter that they no longer planned to pursue the lawsuit.

Sullivan closed the case, which began three weeks ago in New York.

Railroads cleared

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that accused Union Pacific and BNSF Railway of price fixing.

Oxbow Mining said in its lawsuit that the two biggest railroads in the western U.S. worked to avoid direct competition with each other to keep rates high.

The lawsuit said Union Pacific refused to ship coal from its Oxbow’s Elk Creek Mine in western Colorado in an effort to avoid competing with BNSF.

The lawsuit also said the railroads’ fuel surcharges weren’t based on actual costs and simply raised shipping rates.

State Farm profit

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance, the largest U.S. home and car insurer, said its 2012 profit quadrupled as claims costs declined at the unit providing residential coverage.

Net income for the year increased to $3.2 billion from $800 million a year earlier, the company said. Claims costs at the home unit fell to $13.5 billion from $15.4 billion.