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It overturned a $ 4 million punitive-damage award to an Alabama man who had sued a BMW dealer for selling him a repainted car instead of a new one.For the first time , the court declared that the constitutional right to due process of law meant that companies may not be subject to disproportionate punitive damages.In 2003 , the court broadly defined what qualifies as an excessive award , suggesting that punitive damages should normally be no more than nine times as large as compensatory damages . The Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce hosted the ceremony , and Robert Cresanti , undersecretary of commerce for technology , presented the award.Odin , which opened in 2002 , supplies RFID technology to Wal-Mart , Target and the U.S. Department of Defense to help track inventory or other assets.Biometric Passport ReadyBearingPoint Inc. , a McLean management and technology consulting firm , announced this week that it had completed work on designing a biometric passport for the Irish government . Senate Republicans Prevent Vote on Minimum-Wage BillSenate Republicans blocked Democrats yesterday from fulfilling a campaign promise to increase the federal minimum wage , demanding that the pay increase be paired with a tax break for small businesses.On a vote of 54 to 43 , Democrats fell six short of the 60 needed to end debate and go to passage of a House-approved bill to raise the minimum wage for the first time in a decade - - boosting it over two years to $ 7.25 per hour from $ 5.15 . In California , thousands of inmates may be eligible to have their sentences reduced , in many cases by about a year . A broadly written decision on Louisville 's plan , and on a related one from Seattle , could have a profound impact on school systems across the country.It is the first time in more than a decade that the Supreme Court will consider what is proper for school systems to do to promote desegregation , and it is the first test on the issue for two new justices who in the past have been skeptical about the use of racial classifications.Both sides have circled Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. ' s dissenting opinion in a voting rights case decided in the last term that " it is a sordid business , this divvying us up by race . " As the Supreme Court began a new term yesterday in which it will rule on landmark social issues , it rejected about 1,900 appeals that piled up during the summer recess.Among the cases the justices declined to hear were a challenge to a Texas law that bans the sale of sex toys , objections by parents in California to a mandatory class on Islam , and an appeal of lower-court rulings that the managers of Detroit newspapers acted improperly when they fired striking workers . " She suggested that young boys may go into science while young girls stay away because of all the naughty bits in scientific books and research articles . " There 's a new chief justice and a new court for the first time in a long time , " said Orin S. Kerr , a George Washington University law professor and former Supreme Court clerk who frequently comments about the court.Roberts is " making himself open and present in the legal world , " Kerr said .