The Supreme Court's conservative majority made it harder for people to band together to sue the nation's largest businesses in the two most far-reaching rulings of the term the justices are wrapping up on Monday.

The two cases putting new limits on class-action lawsuits were among more than a dozen in which the justices divided 5-4 along familiar ideological lines, with the winning side determined by the vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Women made up one-third of the nine-member court for the first time ever this year, but missing from the court's docket was a case that could be called historic.

Next year and 2013 could look very different, with potentially divisive and consequential cases on immigration, gay marriage and health care making their way to the high court.

The makeup of the court, however, is not expected to change.

Chief Justice John Roberts said the court would finish its business on Monday when the justices will announce decisions in four remaining cases, including two First Amendment disputes.

In one, video game makers are leading a challenge to a California law that bars the sale or rental of violent video games to children. The case was argued nearly eight months ago, when it appeared a majority of the court was inclined to strike down the law.

The Montana Supreme Court has reversed a lower court and ruled that a Montana construction company can either collect a debt or foreclose on a high-end guest ranch involved in a decade-long financial fight.

The Independent Record reports that the high court on Tuesday ruled that the owner of Paws Up used a "shell" corporation to try to avoid paying Helena-based Dick Anderson Construction.

Paws Up is owned by Monroe Property Co., which is controlled by David Lipson, the former CEO of the haircut chain Supercuts.

In 2001 Anderson filed a lawsuit seeking to collect the final $800,000 on the $10 million project. Arbitrators awarded Anderson about $1.4 million in 2005 in damages, interest and attorney's fees.

The Supreme Court says judges cannot give convicts extra time in prison in hope it will be used to get them into rehabilitation services.

The high court on Thursday unanimously ruled in favor of Alejandra Tapia, who was trying to reduce her 51 month sentence for alien smuggling, gun possession and bail jumping.

She wanted a three-year sentence, but the judge said that a longer sentence would increase her chances of getting into a 500-hour prison drug rehabilitation program. Tapia was never placed in the program.

Tapia says Congress has disapproved of judges using imprisonment as a method of rehabilitation. The lower courts disagreed.