CHARLESTON -- The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals was asked to rehear two high-profile cases this week.

Harman Mining and Sovereign Coal Sales filed a "petition for rehearing" Dec. 14 arguing the Supreme Court's decision written by Justice Robin Davis created new law and retroactively applied to earlier hearings.

The Nov. 12 decision overturned a $50 million Boone County jury verdict against A.T. Massey Coal for violating a long-term coal contract. The state Supreme Court ruled 4-1 that Hugh Caperton, owner of Harman, was not legally entitled to pursue a second lawsuit against Massey because he already had won a $6 million verdict following a jury trial in Buchanan County, Va.

Caperton claims the Virginia verdict covered only one year's worth of financial damages to his company, which went into bankruptcy after Massey took over another company that had a long-term coal supply contract with Harman. The lawsuit filed in Boone County sought damages to cover long-term losses after Harman closed its mine near Grundy, Va., and declared bankruptcy.

Caperton's lawyer Rob Berthold said Davis retroactively applied newly created law in the ruling and wants the case reheard in Boone County.

"We are asking for court to send it back to Boone County Circuit Court to have Judge (Jay) Hoke for further proceedings," Berthold said Dec. 15.

Hoke presided over the seven-week trial in 2002.

Berthold said Hoke and the jury never heard the arguments Davis made in the decision about "forum selection" to deny Caperton and Harman their right to a second suit against Massey.

Berthold claims his client was denied the right to make new legal arguments after the case was sent back to the state Supreme Court in June.

If the state Supreme Court decides to hear the case, it will be the seventh time the lawsuit has been heard since first filed in 1998. Overall it would make the fourth time the case would be presented in front of the state Supreme Court.

Berthold said if the state Supreme Court rejects the newest petition, and an earlier one filed on behalf of Caperton personally, the case could again be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Associated Press also filed a "petition of rehearing" Dec. 14 asking the court to rehear another November ruling that declared e-mails between former Justice Elliot "Spike" Maynard and Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship were not subject to the state's Freedom of Information Act.

The Nov. 12 decision overturned Kanawha Circuit Court Judge Duke Bloom's ruling that 13 e-mail's between the pair were public record because they discussed Maynard's unsuccessful 2008 campaign. Blankenship openly supported Maynard and other candidates financially during the 2008 campaign.

Davis wrote the opinion stating none of the e-mails were public records as defined by the state's FOIA requirements and sent the case back to Bloom.

The ruling said content is the only factor that determines whether a personal e-mail sent by any "public official or employee" is a public record under state law.

Davis said the Legislature would have to change the state's FOIA law to include taking a record's context into account when deciding if it should be released.

In its petition, the AP said the court should reverse its opinion and rehear the case because Legislature has stated that the state's FOIA law should be liberally applied.

"The dreadful message sent by this court's opinion is that questions about a judge's impartiality are none of the public's business," the AP said in its filing. "To suggest that such records are none of the public's business is not just wrong factually and legally, it is bad public policy."

The court is in recess until January.