High Court Rejects Sex Bias Case Appeal : Ruling: The justices let stand a $625,000 award to a female employee, rejecting her firm’s claim that men were unfairly excluded from the jury.

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a company that said its rights were violated when an all-female jury ordered it to pay sexual harassment damages to a woman employee.

In another case, the high court gave federal appeals courts more power to review bankruptcy disputes.

In the harassment case, the justices, without comment, refused to disturb a $625,000 damage award to Connie Dias, who sued Sky Chefs Inc. after she was fired from the company’s billing department in Portland, Ore.

The firm, which supplies meals to airlines, said men unlawfully were excluded from the jury.

Dias took a lead role in accusing Sky Chefs plant manager Tony Nathalia of sexual harassment.

She and other employees said he made daily comments about the appearance of women workers, required they wear dresses and shoes with heels and urged them to show him “a good time.”

The company said its rights were violated because Dias’ lawyers excluded men from the jury because of their gender. The jury consisted of six women, selected from a pool of three men and 11 women.

Lawyers on both sides may use peremptory, or automatic, challenges to exclude a certain number of potential jurors without stating a reason.

The Supreme Court in 1991 ruled that lawyers in non-criminal cases may not bar potential jurors because of their race. That decision extended a 1986 ruling that said prosecutors may not use peremptory challenges to exclude blacks from criminal trial juries.

Neither case addressed the issue of excluding jurors based on their gender.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in upholding the damage award to Dias, relied on fairly narrow procedural grounds.

“Sky Chefs failed to make a timely and proper objection to the jury selection process,” the appeals court said. It said the company objected only after the excluded jurors were dismissed, the jury had been sworn in and the trial had reconvened after a recess to consider other procedural aspects of the case.

Meanwhile, the justices unanimously ruled that Connecticut National Bank is entitled to challenge in the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals a ruling granting a jury trial to the trustee of a bankrupt oil company.

O’Sullivan’s Fuel Oil Co. filed for bankruptcy in 1984, originally planning to reorganize.