Justices Bid Fond Goodby to Brennan as Session Opens : Judiciary: Rehnquist, an ideological foe but a personal friend, cites retiring liberal’s ‘profound influence.’ Only 57 cases scheduled for argument.

In a poignant moment before plunging into a busy fall term Monday, the Supreme Court bade a fond farewell to Justice William J. Brennan Jr., with the conservative chief justice hailing the retiring liberal’s “profound influence on American constitutional law.”

The court, which soon will turn its attention to a calendar that includes new challenges to federal anti-discrimination laws and to the scope of the 1st Amendment, paused on the first day of its new term to observe the passing of an era.

Walking slowly with the aid of cane, the 84-year-old Brennan entered the side of the courtroom and took a seat in the audience moments before the 10 a.m. gavel.

His former colleagues filed in. Then Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist addressed the retired justice:

“The personal warmth which you radiate has enriched all our lives and has inspired all of us to maintain the cordial relations so necessary among those who may find themselves in disagreement.”

For nearly 20 years, Rehnquist had clashed with Brennan in many of the major cases before the court. They not only quarreled in private over decisions, but lambasted each other in public and in their written opinions and dissents.

But through it all, the two remained friends.

The letter read by Rehnquist and signed by all the justices took note of Brennan’s contributions during his 34 years on the court and closed with the wish that a respite from the court’s heavy work load will “restore you to the good health which we so very much wish for you.”

In Brennan’s reply, which was read aloud by Rehnquist, the retired justice said that he was “deeply touched” by the “gracious sentiments” of his colleagues. He said that he took comfort from “the expectation that our personal ties will endure in the years ahead.”

Today, the Senate is expected to vote to confirm Brennan’s successor, David H. Souter, a federal judge from New Hampshire. He could be sworn in and hearing cases by next week.

On the first Monday in October, the court traditionally announces which of the summer appeals, more than 1,200 in all, will be granted a full hearing and a written decision. In addition, the justices heard arguments in four pending cases.

The high court opened its term with only 57 cases scheduled for argument, the lowest number since 1954. In a typical year, the court hears and decides about 150 cases, but last year only 132 cases were decided.

No single explanation has been offered for the shrinking work load, although several justices have said that the court in the past granted review to too many cases. The result, they said, was frayed tempers and hastily worked out decisions during the spring rush before adjournment.

Another possible explanation is that the increasingly conservative lower courts are more in tune with the conservative Supreme Court. Rehnquist noted recently that the justices often agree to hear a case because a majority believes that the lower court ruling is wrong. With appointees of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush dominating the federal appeals court, Rehnquist and his conservative colleagues may be seeing fewer rulings that trouble them.

The cases granted review Monday include:

--Do federal anti-discrimination laws protect American workers employed abroad by U.S. companies? The Justice Department says yes, but a federal appeals court in New Orleans said no. The case arose when Ali Boureslan, a Lebanese-American, filed a civil rights suit against his employer, the Arabian American Oil Co. in Saudi Arabia. The appeals court said that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does not cover Americans abroad and threw out his suit. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission appealed. A ruling in the case (EEOC vs. Aramco, 89-1838) could affect the estimated 2.2 million Americans working abroad.

--Is a journalist who deliberately alters quotations protected from a libel suit? Yes, said the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 2-1 decision (Masson vs. New Yorker, 89-1799) threw out a suit filed by researcher Jeffrey Masson against author Janet Malcolm and the New Yorker magazine.

The Supreme Court has protected journalists and authors from libel suits over honest mistakes but not for falsehoods that display “actual malice.”

Author Malcolm taped hours of interviews with Masson but then used as quotations words that Masson did not utter. For example, Masson is quoted as calling himself an “intellectual gigolo” in the profile, but he says that he never used that phrase. Nonetheless, the appeals court threw out his suit because it said Masson’s “many provocative, bombastic statements” on tape create the same picture as the words used by Malcolm.

In a dissent, Judge Alex Kosinski said that the First Amendment did not give journalists a right to put false words into the mouths of their subjects.