Legal News

Justice Ginsburg: Chemotherapy ?Not Expected? to Affect Court Schedule

By Ashby Jones

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had surgery to treat pancreatic cancer last month, issued a statement on Tuesday through the Court. It reads:

On February 5, 2009 I underwent a complete, successful, surgical removal of a pancreatic cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. In consultation with Dr. Eileen O'Reilly and Dr. Leonard Saltz of MSK, I am scheduled to undergo a precautionary, post-surgery course of chemotherapy at the National Institutes of Health. The treatments, which will commence in late March, are not expected to affect my schedule at the Court. Thereafter, it is anticipated that I will require only routine examinations to assure my continuing good health.

Click here for the take from Tony Mauro, now of the National Law Journal.

According to Mauro, by stressing her expectation of a positive outcome for her own treatments, Ginsburg may be steering that speculation about retirement away from herself.

During a recent speech, Ginsburg said retired justice Sandra Day O’Connor, herself a cancer survivor, had advised her to schedule chemotherapy treatments on Friday afternoons so she could have the weekend to recover before returning to work on Mondays. In that same talk in Boston, Ginsburg also said she expected a vacancy on the Court “soon,” triggering another round of speculation on possible departures.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 17, 2009 (boomark / email).