WASHINGTON-The U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to consider appeals of mobile phone and tower radiation safety guidelines adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 1996.
Four parties had challenged a decision last year by a federal appeals court in New York, which upheld the FCC’s radio-frequency radiation standard. The four parties argued to the Supreme Court that government radiation guidelines for cell phones and towers do not adequately protect consumers against health risks.
“Obviously, the Supreme Court agreed with us and found the FCC did a good job in determining scientifically based RF guidelines,” said Michael Altschul, vice president and general counsel of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
Last Monday’s high court ruling, rendered without comment, comes on the heels of two new epidemiology studies that found no near-term risk of brain cancer from limited cell-phone use for two or three years.
The two studies did not look at heavy mobile-phone radiation exposure over a longer period. Such circumstances exist in an $800 million lawsuit in Baltimore and in a workplace compensation complaint filed in Illinois by a former Motorola technician.
Baltimore Orioles owner-attorney Peter Angelos, who made billions of dollars litigating personal-injury lawsuits against the asbestos and tobacco manufacturers, may soon join fellow lawyer Joanne Suder on the mobile-phone-brain cancer lawsuit in Baltimore.
A federal court in Baltimore threw out several of counts in the original lawsuit. Suder and Angelos are expected to file an amended complaint on Tuesday.
Suder told RCR Wireless News last week she had a new document that could get the case back to state court: the receipt from the Maryland store from which 42-year-old neurologist Christopher Newman bought his cellular phone that he claims caused his potentially fatal brain cancer.
Suder previously said she will file a slew of lawsuits throughout the country against the wireless industry. It is unclear whether Angelos will join Suder in a national litigation strategy. The Times of London, citing comments from Angelos law partner John Pica, reported that the Angelos law firm planned to file at least 10 lawsuits this year.
However, Angelos recently distanced himself from Pica’s statements.
Other health-related lawsuits are pending in Chicago and New Orleans.
