Attorneys for a woman who says she was sexually assaulted by a member of a prominent Georgia family said Monday that they will ask the state Supreme Court to hear the civil case.

But the lawyer for the alleged assailant said the high court would refuse to hear it for procedural reasons, not to mention the facts involved.

Melanie Ross said that as a student at Mercer University in Macon, she had a brief relationship with Daniel Day, the son of state Rep. Burke Day, whose family founded the Days Inn hotel chain. Not long after, in January 2003, Ross said, she encountered him at a party.

Ross said she awoke the next morning with injuries a doctor associated with a sexual attack, and after local authorities took no action, she filed a sexual battery lawsuit.

Superior Court Judge Phillip Brown of Bibb County dismissed her claims.

"We were stunned by the trial court decision," Amanda Farahany, one of Ross' lawyers, said Monday. She said Brown "put himself in place of a jury."

More stunning, Farahany said, is that Brown ordered Ross to pay Day's $150,000 legal bill.

Last week, the Georgia Court of Appeals refused to hear the case.

John G. Parker, a lawyer for Day, said Ross' attorneys missed a crucial deadline for notifying the courts that they would ask the Supreme Court to take the case. For that reason alone, the court would refuse to hear it, Parker said.

He added that there was no evidence to support Ross' claims, and that he believed the lawsuit was an effort to extort money from Day's family.

"The judge awarded all of our attorneys' fees, and under Georgia law the only way he can do that is if he believes the lawsuit to be frivolous," Parker said.

Farahany denied the claim that Ross is just out for money. She said that, so far, Ross has asked for nothing other than a jury to hear her lawsuit.

"We want the jury to make the decision in this matter," she said.

Farahany said that because the Court of Appeals declined, without opinion, to review the case, Brown's ruling could affect future sexual battery lawsuits in the state.