CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- James O. Holliday, a retired Putnam County judge, has been selected to replace state Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin in the rehearing of a case ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week.

Late Thursday afternoon, the Supreme Court issued an administrative order naming Holliday. The order was signed by acting Chief Justice Robin Davis and Supreme Court Clerk Rory L. Perry II.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Benjamin should have stepped down from a case that pitted Hugh Caperton and his company, Harman Mining, against Massey Energy. Massey chief executive Don Blankenship spent more than $3 million of his own money to help get Benjamin elected to the Supreme Court in 2004.

Holliday, a Republican, is a senior status judge who retired as a Putnam County circuit judge. The state Supreme Court has named him to help resolve numerous other difficult and controversial legal matters.

The court has not yet scheduled a date for rehearing the Caperton-Massey case.

The original August 2002 Boone County jury verdict awarded Caperton $50 million in a case where it decided that Massey had taken a long-term coal supply contract that Harman Mining had to sell metallurgical coal to LTV, a company that had steel mills in the Pittsburgh area.

Today, with interest, the Caperton verdict is worth more than $82.5 million.

In 1993, then-Chief Justice Margaret Workman named Holliday to investigate matters related to former West Virginia State Police chemist Fred Zain.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- James O. Holliday, a retired Putnam County judge, has been selected to replace state Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin in the rehearing of a case ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week.

Late Thursday afternoon, the Supreme Court issued an administrative order naming Holliday. The order was signed by acting Chief Justice Robin Davis and Supreme Court Clerk Rory L. Perry II.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Benjamin should have stepped down from a case that pitted Hugh Caperton and his company, Harman Mining, against Massey Energy. Massey chief executive Don Blankenship spent more than $3 million of his own money to help get Benjamin elected to the Supreme Court in 2004.

Holliday, a Republican, is a senior status judge who retired as a Putnam County circuit judge. The state Supreme Court has named him to help resolve numerous other difficult and controversial legal matters.

The court has not yet scheduled a date for rehearing the Caperton-Massey case.

The original August 2002 Boone County jury verdict awarded Caperton $50 million in a case where it decided that Massey had taken a long-term coal supply contract that Harman Mining had to sell metallurgical coal to LTV, a company that had steel mills in the Pittsburgh area.

Today, with interest, the Caperton verdict is worth more than $82.5 million.

In 1993, then-Chief Justice Margaret Workman named Holliday to investigate matters related to former West Virginia State Police chemist Fred Zain.

After Holliday's investigation determined that Zain had lied or exaggerated about his laboratory results when testifying in criminal cases, the Supreme Court threw out all of Zain's testimony. Zain was blamed for wrongful convictions that led to prison terms for at least six men.

In 1992, when Holliday was still a circuit judge, Chief Justice E. Thomas McHugh named him to handle various controversial legal issues and appeals, including a hearing about the constitutionality of the state's solid-waste reclamation laws.

In 1997, Holliday wrote an opinion for the Supreme Court upholding the "admonishment" of Supreme Court Justice Larry Starcher, an opinion reached by a specially appointed five-judge panel.

The year before, when Starcher was a Monongalia County circuit judge, he personally wrote "a letter to a labor organization or certain of its representatives, seeking the endorsement of the labor organization" on March 9, a few weeks before he won the Democrats' primary election.

A second administrative order issued by the Supreme Court late Thursday explained why two other temporary Supreme Court justices, who already have heard the Caperton-Massey case once, were not named to replace Benjamin.

Retired Marion County judge Fred M. Fox II and retired Hampshire County judge Donald H. Cookman replaced Starcher and Justice Elliott "Spike" Maynard after those two recused themselves from the case -- Starcher for negative public comments he made about Benjamin and Maynard after photos surfaced of him and Blankenship on vacation in Europe.

The court said that because Maynard and Starcher no longer are on the court, the temporary assignments of Fox and Cookman were over.

Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5164