High Court to Also Take On Age Discrimination and Worker Protection Suits
By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 19, 2008
The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to decide whether tobacco companies can be sued in state courts for deceptive advertising of "light" cigarettes and if drugmakers should be protected from some patient lawsuits.
In addition, the court said it will consider whether federal law protects a worker from being fired after participating in a sexual harassment investigation of her boss, and will hear a separate claim of age discrimination.
The four are among six new cases the justices accepted. The court will hear only two of them during its current term, with the others held over for the fall, but justices have not yet decided which two. Except for emergencies, justices do not hear arguments after April so they can finish their work by the end of June.
In Philip Morris v. Good, the tobacco company asks the court to dismiss a lawsuit by Stephanie Good and two other longtime smokers that the advertising for Marlboro Lights deceives smokers into believing they are buying a more healthful product. The lawsuit alleges that smokers will either smoke more of the cigarettes, or smoke them in a way to defeat the purpose of their filters, because of smokers' nicotine addiction. They are suing under a Maine law, but there are dozens of similar lawsuits across the country.
Philip Morris and its parent company Altria asked the court to take the case and hold that, because federal law regulates the labeling and advertising of cigarettes, suits under state law should not be allowed.
Similarly, Wyeth said it should be protected against a $6.8 million award to a woman whose arm was amputated after complications from taking the company's Phenergan anti-nausea drug.
The Vermont Supreme Court upheld the verdict for musician Diana Levine, who developed gangrene after the drug was injected into an artery using a "push IV" method. After filing suit against the medical facility, she sued Wyeth under state law, saying the drug company should have specifically warned against using such a method.
Wyeth, supported by other pharmaceutical companies, said it should be protected from such suits because its warning about arterial injection was approved by the Federal Drug Administration, the controlling authority in such matters. The case is Wyeth v. Levine.
In Crawford v. Metropolitan Government, the court will consider an appeals court ruling that the Bush administration said "creates an inexplicable gap" in the federal law that protects a worker who cooperates in an investigation of her superior.
Vicky Crawford alleges that she was fired after more than 30 years in Nashville local government after she was asked to help with an internal investigation of a boss.
She testified to explicit comments and actions on the part of the school system's employee relations director, Gene Hughes. The investigation concluded Hughes's actions did not warrant charges. Still, Crawford was later fired, allegedly for numerous failings in her job.
She filed suit, saying her firing was retaliation for cooperating in the investigation of Hughes. But a federal district court, and later the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, said the protections of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act did not extend to her because she had not initiated the charges against Hughes or filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after testifying.
Crawford argued in her petition to the court such a limitation would hinder investigations.
"Workers of ordinary prudence would be likely to avoid cooperating with a sexual harassment internal investigation if they knew they could be fired for doing so," the petition said.
The age-discrimination case involves a downsizing at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Upstate New York. Lockheed Martin used an index for judging which employees should be retained. The result was that 30 of the 31 employees fired were older than 40, even though 60 percent of the workforce was in that age category.
The workers won at the district court level under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, but an appeals court reversed that ruling. The Bush administration sided with the workers and asked the Supreme Court to take the case.
It is Meacham v. KAPL.
The other cases are MetLife v. Glenn, which raises questions about conflicts of interest in the management of an employee benefit plan, and Summers v. Earth Island Institute, which involves who may challenge a federal regulation.
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