While celebrating civility in public discourse on Monday night, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor joked she had thought about hitting her deceased colleague Antonin Scalia with a baseball bat due to their differences in opinion.

The 62-year-old Obama appointee told a group of University of Minnesota she wasn't always quick to tolerate her coworker's conservative views.

"There are things he's said on the bench where if I had a baseball bat, I might have used it," said Sotomayor, the first Latina appointed to the highest court.

She added that Scalia's unexpected death in February was like losing a family member, despite their differences at work.

Sotomayor said even though the two had different principles, they were able to work together by focusing on their good intentions.

"If we've lost anything, it's remembering that differences don't stand, necessarily, on ill will," she said. "If you keep that in mind, you can resolve almost any issue, because you can find that common ground to interact with each other."