The federal appeals court in Atlanta has upheld a verdict that cleared an Alabama coal producer in the shooting deaths of 3 Colombian union leaders. Families of the three killed by paramilitary forces in 2001 sued Drummond Co., but a jury in Birmingham rejected their claims in July 2007. Labor groups representing the relatives claimed U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre was wrong to bar testimony intended to tie Drummond to the slayings. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Bowdre's rulings in an opinion filed last week.