Supremes: No to Bolton

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Singer-songwriter Michael Bolton, 47, lost an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, after requesting that the justices overturn an earlier $5.4 million jury ruling -- the largest ever involving a single song -- that his hit, "Love Is a Wonderful Thing," plagiarized parts of a song of the same name by legendary soul singers the Isley Brothers. Without any comment or dissent, reports the Associated Press, the high court rejected an appeal by Bolton, co-writer Andrew Goldmark and Sony Music. Following a two-week trial in 1994, a Los Angeles jury found that Bolton's 1991 hit was copied in part from a little-known 1966 Isley Brothers song, also called "Love Is a Wonderful Thing." Last year, reported PEOPLE, a federal appeals court upheld the $7 million ruling against Bolton and rejected his request of a new trial. Bolton attempted to buy the Isley Brothers's publishing rights from a bankruptcy court in 2000, but was passed over in favor of another bidder. In the 1994 trial, Bolton testified that he never heard of the song by the Isley Brothers. In his appeal, Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz represented him.