If she ever has to respond to a major disaster in Douglas County, Paula Phillips will have her BlackBerry at her side to help coordinate the response.

“It’s very convenient – I can e-mail the state that ‘This is what we need or don’t need,’ and do it from the field,” Phillips, the county’s emergency management director, said of the cellular phone that has a miniature keyboard to send and receive e-mail.

But, she added: “I haven’t had to use it in the field.”

Now there’s a question whether she ever will.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from the maker of the BlackBerry in the long-running battle over patents for the wildly popular, handheld wireless e-mail device.

The high court’s refusal to hear Canada-based Research In Motion Ltd.’s appeal means that a trial judge in Richmond, Va., could impose an injunction against the company and block BlackBerry use among many of its 3 million owners in the United States.

Those customers include more than 200 state officials – including gubernatorial staffers and Atty. Gen. Phill Kline, as well as Kansas University and Kansas State University officials. Roughly 40 Douglas County employees and about a dozen administrators at city hall also use the device.

“Cabinet secretaries have come to rely on them,” said Gavin Young, a spokesman for the Kansas Department of Administration. “Some of the communication that used to take place over the phone, they would prefer take place over e-mail.”

U.S. officials worry about the loss of BlackBerry use for law enforcement and health workers in a crisis. But attorney Herbert L. Fenster, who represents the company that owns the BlackBerry system, said he believed federal law prohibits the court from cutting off service to federal, state and local government users and others who rely on the devices to communicate during a public emergency.

State officials are relying on that argument.

“What we’ve been told by our IT folks is we’re excluded from this,” said Nicole Corcoran, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, adding that state staffers use their BlackBerries “religiously.”

“We made it before we had them,” Corcoran said, “and we’ll make it if we don’t have them.”

Assistant Douglas County Administrator Pam Madl said she’d been assured by Cingular, the county’s wireless contractor, that the company would provide backup coverage. City Manager Mike Wildgen said city hall probably would revert back to regular cellular phones if BlackBerry is shut down.