The high court on Monday refused to take up BP's contention that it has been forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in claims to businesses whose losses were not caused by the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The justices' refusal to hear the case signaled a defeat for the embattled British oil giant, which has paid some $28 billion to date in claims and cleanup costs. In September, a federal judge found BP grossly negligent in the spill, which could subject the multinational corporation to another $18 billion in civil penalties.