Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Misses 3 Days On The Bench, But This Isn’t A Big Deal

She’s recovering from major surgery and can probably still outlift you, bro. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Today marks the third straight day in a row that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has not appeared at the high court for oral arguments. Prior to this week, she had never missed a day of work in her more than 25 years as a Supreme Court justice.

Just before Christmas, Justice Ginsburg had a pulmonary lobectomy to remove two cancerous nodules from her lungs. People are concerned about her health, and rightly so, but as noted by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Ginsburg is working from home, and will participate in all opinions via the parties’ previously submitted briefs and the argument transcripts that will be provided to her.

The 85-year-old justice may be absent from even more oral arguments as she recovers, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s really not such a big deal if she misses a few days of work. After all, it’s unlike Justice Ginsburg, but there’s precedent for this sort of thing. For example, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist missed weeks of work in 2004 after he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and underwent a tracheotomy. In fact, then-Chief Justice Rehnquist missed oral arguments in 44 cases, all of the conferences on those cases, and still wrote the majority opinion in four of them.

Justice Ginsburg is now a three-time cancer survivor, and according to the American Lung Association, most patients are back to their usual lifestyles within a month after a lobectomy. It’s been just under three weeks since the Notorious RBG went under the knife, so while she’s theoretically still got a little more recovery time, the odds are that this beloved workaholic will be back on the bench before you know it.

Ginsburg’s absence on bench renews concerns over health [The Hill]
Ginsburg misses third consecutive day at Supreme Court [The Hill]

Earlier: Ruth Bader Ginsburg To Miss Oral Arguments For The First Time

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Misses 3 Days On The Bench, But This Isn’t A Big Deal curated from Above the Law