WASHINGTON-The mobile-phone industry asked the full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear arguments in class-action headset lawsuits sent back to various state courts by a divided three-judge panel last month.
Wireless carriers and manufacturers said the Richmond, Va.-based federal appeals court’s 2-1 decision conflicts with other circuit court rulings and “seriously threatens the regulatory uniformity mandated by Congress” for the wireless industry. The 24-page rehearing petition appears to lay the foundation for a possible Supreme Court appeal.
The 4th Circuit on March 16 returned four headset suits to state courts in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and Georgia and a fifth to a federal court in Maryland, which could ultimately remand the latter case to a Louisiana state court. Two of the judges on the 4th Circuit concluded the cases are not pre-empted by federal law.
In 2003, U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake of Baltimore dismissed the five headset class action suits-which seek to force wireless firms to supply headsets to consumers to reduce the possibility of injury from phone radiation-on federal preemption grounds.
On a related front, a newly published study in the American Journal of Epidemiology found no evidence that long-term use of mobile phones increases the risk of certain brain tumors.
