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S P E C I A L : Supreme Court: 1997-1998 Session Supreme Court rejects appeal from lesbian lawyer
In this story:
- Lesbian lawyer's appeal rejected
- Domino's appeal rejected in sex harassment case
- Turkish sailors lose appeal on missile attack
- Court to move quickly in phone rate dispute
- Related stories and sites
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A lesbian lawyer who says she unlawfully was denied a job on the Georgia attorney general's staff because of her impending "marriage" to another woman lost a Supreme Court appeal on Monday.
The court also rejected appeals in cases involving sexual harassment and an accidental missile attack on Turkish sailors.
And the justices said they would speed up their consideration of a long-distance telephone pricing dispute.
A L S O :
Court hears rival claims to famed Ellis Island
Lesbian lawyer's appeal rejected
In a case closely watched by gay rights groups, the justices let stand a ruling that said Robin Joy Shahar's rights were not violated when a job offer was withdrawn.
She contends that former Georgia Attorney General Michael Bowers violated her rights of association and equal protection by the action he took in 1991.
Shahar was a law student when she worked as a law clerk in the Georgia Department of Law in the summer of 1990. That September, Bowers offered her a job as a staff attorney when she graduated from law school. She accepted and was to begin work in September 1991.
In July 1991, Shahar and another woman made a lifelong commitment to one another in a religious ceremony that had no legal significance.
A few weeks before the event, Shahar received a letter from Bowers that withdrew the job offer because her "committed lesbian relationship" conflicted with Georgia's anti-sodomy law.
Both a federal trial judge and an appeals court later ruled that Bowers had not violated any of Shahar's rights.
Domino's appeal rejected in sex-harassment case
The Supreme Court also rejected an appeal in a case involving sexual harassment by a woman against a man. The Domino's pizza chain argued that it wrongly was held legally responsible for the treatment one of its former store managers, David Papa, received from his boss, area supervisor Beth Carrier.
According to lower court rulings, Papa was running a Domino's shop in Port Richey, Florida, in 1988 when Carrier began harassing him -- touching him in inappropriate ways and inviting him to live with her.
When Papa eventually threatened to report her conduct, Carrier told Papa she would "get" him. She fired him six days later.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Papa sued Domino's, alleging that the pizza company had violated a federal anti-bias law that bans on-the-job sexual harassment.
A federal trial court ruled in Papa's favor, awarding him $237,257.52 in back pay. The ruling was upheld by an appeals court before going to the Supreme Court which also backed the lower court decision.
Turkish sailors lose appeal on missile attack
In another case, the justices refused to revive a lawsuit against the U.S. government over deaths and injuries caused when an aircraft carrier accidentally fired on a Turkish warship in 1992.
The court turned away Turkish sailors' argument that they should be allowed to sue the U.S. government for monetary damages.
Five sailors were killed and about two dozen were wounded October 1, 1992, when the aircraft carrier Saratoga fired a missile that hit a Turkish destroyer during NATO maneuvers in the Aegean Sea.
Sailors on the Saratoga, awakened for a drill, thought it was an actual attack and fired two anti-ship missiles, military officials said. One missile struck the Turkish ship Muavenet and the other fell into the sea.
Both a federal judge and an appeals panel had ruled the case involved political issues that could not be resolved in court. In its decision on Monday, the Supreme Court sided with the earlier rulings.
Court to move quickly in phone rate dispute
In a dispute over efforts to open the $100 billion local phone market to long-distance companies, the justices said they would give the issue speedier consideration by reviewing three related appeals at once later this month.
At issue is a federal appeals court ruling that struck down Federal Communications Commission guidelines for the prices paid by competing long-distance companies to connect with local phone companies' networks.
The July ruling said such pricing authority belongs to the individual states, not the FCC.
The three appeals came from two long-distance companies -- AT&T and MCI -- and from the Clinton administration, which had hoped to create a national policy encouraging local phone competition -- a goal set by Congress in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Supreme Court:
1997-1998 Session
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